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SLIPPY McGEE 

SOMETIMES KNOWN AS 
THE BUTTERFLY MAN 


£3 

BY 7^/7 

MARIE CONWAY OEMLER 



NEW YORK 
THE CENTURY CO. 
392Q 












Copyright, 1917, by 

The Century Co. 


Published, April, 1917. 

Reprinted, August, 1917; February, 1918; 
August, 1918; March, 1919 ; August, 1919; 
November, 1919 ; February, 1920. 



ELIZABETH and ALAN OEMLER 




V 


FOREWORD 


I have known life and love, I have known death and disaster; 

Foregathered with fools, succumbed to sin, been not unac¬ 
quainted with shame; 

Doubted, and yet held fast to a faith no doubt could o’ermaster. 

Wop and lost: — and I know it was all a part of the Game. 

Youth and the dreams of youth, hope, and the triumph of 
sorrow: 

I took as they came, I played them all; and I trumped the trick 
when I could. 

And now, 0 Mover of Men, let the end be to-day or to¬ 
morrow — 

I have staked and played for Myself, and You and the Game 
were good! 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PA GE 

I APPLEBORO . 3 

II THE COMING OF SLIPPY McGEE. 19 

III NEIGHBORS. 37 

IV UNDERWINGS.48 

V ENTER KERRY.65 

VI “THY SERVANT WILL GO AND FIGHT WITH 

THIS PHILISTINE” 1 SAM. 17-32 .... 94 

Vn THE GOING OF SLIPPY McGEE.Ill 

VIII THE BUTTERFLY MAN.131 

IX NESTS.145 

X THE BLUE JAY.172 

XI A LITTLE GIRL GROWN UP.189 

XII JOHN FLINT, GENTLEMAN.203 

XIII “EACH IN HIS OWN COIN”.22G 

XIV THE WISHING CURL.258 

XV IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.283 

XVI “WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR” ... 302 

XVII “—SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY—” . . .319 

XVIII ST. STANISLAUS CROOKS HIS ELBOW . . . 343 

XIX THE IOUOF SLIPPY McGEE.364 

XX BETWEEN A BUTTERFLY’S WINGS . . . .382 














\ 




SLIPPY McGEE 



CHARACTERS 


Father Armand Jean de Ranc£, Catholio Priest of Appleboro, 
South Carolina 

Madame de Ranc£, his Mother 
Cl£lie, their Servant 
Laurence Mayne, the Boy 
Mary Virginia Eustis, the Oirl 
James Eustis, Man of the New South 
Mrs. Eustis, a Lady 

Doctor Walter Westmoreland, the Beloved Physician 
Jim Dabney, Editor of the Appleboro “ Clarion ” 

Major Appleby Cartwright 

Miss Sally Ruth Dexter Neighbors 

Judge Hammond Mayne 

George Inglesby, the Boss of Appleboro 

J. Howard Hunter, his Private Secretary 

Kerry, an Irish Setter 

Pitache, the Pariah House Dog 

The Moths and Butterflies of South Carolina 

The Children, the Mill-hands, the Factory Folks, and 

Slippy McGee, sometimes known as the Butterfly Man 



V 


SLIPPY McGEE 

CHAPTER I 

APPLEBORO 

‘ "T OW there was my cousin Eliza, ’’ Miss Sally 
Ruth Dexter once said to me, “who was 
A- forced to make her home for thirty years 

in Vienna! She married an attache of the Austrian 
legation, you know; met him while she was visiting 
in Washington, and she was such a pretty girl and he 
was such a charming man that they fell in love with 
each other and got married. Afterward his family pro¬ 
cured him a very influential post at court, and of course 
poor Cousin Eliza had to stay there with him. Dear 
mama often said she considered it a most touching 
proof of woman’s willingness to sacrifice herself—for 
there’s no doubt it must have been very hard on poor 
Cousin Eliza. She was born and raised right here in 
Appleboro, you see.” 

Do not think that Miss Sally Ruth was anything but 
most transparently sincere in thus sympathizing with 
the sad fate of poor Cousin Eliza, who was born and 
raised in Appleboro, South Carolina, and yet sacrificed 
herself by dragging out thirty years of exile in the court 
circles of Vienna! Any trueborn Appleboron would be 
equally sorry for Cousin Eliza for the same reason that 

3 


4 


SLIPPY McGEE 


Miss Sally Ruth was. Get yourself born in South Caro¬ 
lina and you will comprehend. 

“What did you see in your travels that you liked 
most?” I was curious to discover from an estimable 
citizen who had spent a summer abroad. 

“Why, General Lee’s standin’ statue in the Capitol an’ 
his recumbent figure in Washington an’ Lee chapel, of 
co’se!” said the colonel promptly. “An’ listen hyuh, 
Father De Ranee, I certainly needed him to take the bad 
taste out of my mouth an’ the red out of my eye after 
viewin’ Bill Sherman on a brass hawse in New York, 
with an angel that’d lost the grace of God prancin’ on 
ahead of him!” He added reflectively: “I had my 
own ideah as to where any angel leadin’ him was most 
likely headed for!” 

“Oh, I meant in Europe!” hastily. 

“Well, father, I saw pretty near everything in 
Europe, I reckon; likewise New York. But cornin’ 
home I ran up to Washington an’ Lee to visit the gen¬ 
eral lyin’ there asleep, an’ it just needed one glance to 
assure me that the greatest an’ grandest work of art in 
this round world was right there before me! What do 
folks want to rush off to foreign parts for, where they 
can’t talk plain English an’ a man can’t get a satisfyin’ 
meal of home cookin’, when we’ve got the greatest work 
of art an’ the best hams ever cured, right in Virginia? 
See America first, I say. Why, suh, I was so glad to 
get back to good old Appleboro that I let everybody 
else wait until I’d gone around to the monument an’ 
looked up at our man standin’ there on top of it, an’ 
I found myself sayin’ over the names he’s guardin’ 
as if I was sayin’ my prayers: our names. 


APPLEBORO 


5 


“Uh huh, Europe % good enough for Europeans an’ 
the Nawth’s a God’s plenty good enough for Yankees, 
but Appleboro for me. Why, father, they haven’t got 
anything like our monument to their names!” 

They haven’t. And I should hate to thiflk that any 
Confederate living or dead ever even remotely resembled 
the gray granite one on our monument. He is a brigand¬ 
ish and bearded person in a foraging cap, leaning for¬ 
ward to rest himself on his gun. His long skirted coat 
is buckled tightly about his waist to form a neat bustle 
effect in the back, and the solidity of his granite shoes 
and the fell rigidity of his granite breeches are such as 
make the esthetic shudder; one has to admit that as a 
work of art he is almost as bad as the statues cluttering 
New York City. But in Appleboro folks are not critical; 
they see him not with the eyes of art but with the deeper 
vision of the heart. He stands for something that is gone 
on the wind and the names he guards are our names. 

This is not irrelevant. It is merely to explain some¬ 
thing that is inherent in the living spirit of all South 
Carolina; wherefore it explains my Appleboro, the real 
inside-Appleboro. 

Outwardly Appleboro is just one of those quiet, con¬ 
servative, old Carolina towns where, loyal to the customs 
and traditions of their fathers, they would as lief white¬ 
wash what they firmly believe to be the true and natural 
character of General William Tecumseh Sherman as they 
would their own front fences. Occasionally somebody 
will give a backyard henhouse a needed coat or two; but 
a front fence? Never! It isn’t the thing. Nobody 
does it. All normal South Carolinians come into the 
world with a native horror of paint and whitewash and 


6 


SLIPPY McGEE 


they depart hence even as they were born. In cc lse- 
quence, towns like Appleboro take on the venerable as¬ 
pect of antiquity, peacefully drowsing among immemorial 
oaks draped with long, gray, melancholy moss. 

Not that we are cut off from the world, or that we 
have escaped the clutch of commerce. We have the 
usual shops and stores, even an emporium or two, and 
street lights until twelve, and the mills and factory. 
We have the river trade, and two railroads tap our rich 
territory to fetch and carry what we take and give. 
And, except in the poor parish of which I, Armand De 
Ranee, am pastor, and some few wealthy families like 
the Eustises, Agur’s wise and noble prayer has been in 
part granted to us; for if it has not been possible to 
remove far from us all vanity and lies, yet we have been 
given neither poverty nor riches, and we are fed with 
food convenient for us. 

In Appleboro the pleasant and prejudiced Old looks 
askance at the noisy and intruding New, before which 
it is forced to retreat—always without undue or undig¬ 
nified haste, however, and always unpainted and unre¬ 
constructed. It is a town where families live in houses 
that have sheltered generations of the same name, using 
furniture that was not new when Marion’s men hid in 
the swamps and the redcoats overran the country-side. 
Almost everybody has a garden, full of old-fashioned 
shrubs and flowers, and fine trees. In such a place men 
and women grow old serenely and delightfully, and 
youth flourishes all the fairer for the rich soil which 
has brought it forth. 

One has twenty-four hours to the day in a South 
Carolina town—plenty of time to live in, so that one 


APPLEBORO 


7 


can afford to do things unhurriedly and has leisure to 
be neighborly. For you do have neighbors here. It 
is true that they know all your business and who 
and what your grandfather was and wasn’t, and they 
are prone to discuss it with a frankness to make the 
scalp prickle. But then, you know theirs, too, and you 
are at liberty to employ the same fearsome frankness, 
provided you do it politely and are not speaking to an 
outsider. It is perfectly permissible for you to say ex¬ 
actly what you please about your own people to your 
own people, but should an outsider and an alien pre¬ 
sume to do likewise, the Carolina code admits of but one 
course of conduct; borrowing. the tactics of the goats 
against the wolf, they close in shoulder to shoulder and 
present to the audacious intruder an unbroken and for¬ 
midable front of horns. 

And it is the last place left in all America where de¬ 
cent poverty is in nowise penalized. You can be poor 
pleasantly—a much rarer and far finer art than being 
old gracefully. Because of this, life in South Carolina 
sometimes retains a simplicity as fine and sincere as it is 
charming. 

I deplore the necessity, but I will be pardoned if I 
pause here to become somewhat personal, to explain who 
and what I am and how I came to be a pastor in Apple- 
boro. To explain myself, then, I shall have to go back to 
a spring morning long ago, when I was not a poor parish 
priest, no, nor ever dreamed of becoming one, but was 
young Armand De Ranee, a flower-crowned and sing¬ 
ing pagan, holding up to the morning sun the 
chalice of spring; joyous because I was of a perishable 
beauty, dazzled because life gave me so much, proud of 


8 


SLIPPY McGEE 


an old and honored name, secure in ancestral wealth, 
loving laughter so much that I looked with the raised 
eyebrow and the twisted lip at austerities and prayers. 

If ever I reflected at all, it was to consider that I 
had nothing to pray for, save that things might ever re¬ 
main as they were: that I should remain me, myself, 
young Armand De Ranee, loving and above all beloved 
of that one sweet girl whom I loved with all my heart. 
Young, wealthy, strong, beautiful, loving, and beloved! 
To hold all that, crowded into the hollow of one boyish 
hand! Oh, it was too much! 

I do not think I had ever felt my own happiness so 
exquisitely as I did upon that day which was to see the 
last of it. I was to go a-Maying with her who had 
ever been as my own soul, since we were children play¬ 
ing together. So I rode off: to her home, an old house 
set in its walled inclosure by the river. At the door 
somebody met me, calling me by my name. I thought 
at first it had been a stranger. It was her mother. And 
while I stood staring at her changed face she took me 
by the hand and began to whisper in my ear . . . what 
I had to know. Blindly, like one bludgeoned on the 
head, I followed her into a darkened room, and saw 
what lay there with closed eyes and hair still wet from 
the river into which my girl had cast herself. 

No, I cannot put into words just what had happened; 
indeed, I never really knew all. There was no public 
scandal, only great sorrow. But I died that morning. 
The young and happy part of me died, and, only half- 
alive! I walked about among the living, dragging about 
with me the corpse of what had been myself. Crushed 
by this horrible burden which none saw but I, I was 


APPLEBORO 


9 


blind to the beauties of earth and deaf to the mercies 
of heaven, until a great Voice called me to come out 
of the sepulcher of myself; and I came—alive again, 
and free, of a strong spirit, but with youth gone from 
it. Out of the void of an irremediable disaster God had 
called me to His service, chastened and humbled. 

“Who is weak and 1 am not weak?, who is offended 
and I burn not?” 

And yet, although I knew my decision was irrevocable, 
I did not find it easy to tell my mother. Then: 

“Little mother of my heart,” I blurted, “my career 
is decided. I have been called. I am for the Church.” 

We were in her pleasant morning room, a beautiful 
room,, and the lace curtains were pushed aside to allow 
free ingress of air and sunlight. Between the win¬ 
dows hung two objects my mother most greatly cher¬ 
ished—one an enameled Petitot miniature, gold-framed, 
of a man in the flower of his youth. His hair, beauti¬ 
ful as the hair of Absalom, falls about his haughty, high¬ 
bred face, and so magnificently is he clothed that when 
I was a child I used to associate him in my mind with 
those “captains and rulers, clothed most gorgeously, all 
of them desirable young men, . . . girdled with a girdle 
upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their 
heads, all of them princes to look to” . . . whom 
Aholibah “doted upon when her eyes saw them por¬ 
trayed upon the walls in vermilion” 

The other is an Audran engraving of that same man 
grown old and stripped of beauty and of glory, as the 
leaf that falls and the flower that fades. The somber 
habit of an order has replaced scarlet and gold; and 
sackcloth, satin. Between the two pictures hangs an old 


SLIPPY McGEE 


10 

crucifix. For that is Armand De Ranee, glorious sin¬ 
ner, handsomest, wealthiest, most gifted man of his day 
—and his a day of glorious men; and this is Armand 
De Ranee, become the sad austere reformer of La 
Trappe. 

My mother rose, walked over to the Abbe’s pictures, 
and looked long and with rather frightened eyes at him. 
Perhaps there was something in the similarity to his of 
the fate which had come upon me who bore his name, 
which caused her to turn so pale. I also am an Armand 
De Ranee, of a cadet branch of that great house, which 
emigrated to the New World when we French were 
founding colonies on the banks of the Mississippi. 

Her hand went to her heart. Turning, she regarded 
me pitifully. 

“Oh, no, not that!” I reassured her. “I am at once 
too strong and not strong enough for solitude and si¬ 
lence. Surely there is room and work for one who 
would serve God through serving his fellow men, in the 
\ open, is there not ? ’ ’ 

At that she kissed me. Not a whimper, although I 
am an only son and the name dies with me, the old 
name of which she was so beautifully proud! She had 
hoped to see my son wear my father’s name and face 
and thus bring back the lost husband she had so greatly 
loved; she had prayed to see my children about her 
knees, and it must have cost her a frightful anguish to 
renounce these sweet and consoling dreams, these tender 
and human ambitions. Yet she did so, smiling, and 
kissed me on the brow. 

Three months later I entered the Church; and be- 


APPLEBORO 


11 


cause I was the last De Ranee, and twenty four, and 
the day was to have been my wedding-day, there fell 
upon me, sorely against my will, the halo of sad ro¬ 
mance. 

Endeared thus to the young, I suppose I grew into 
what I might call a very popular preacher. Though I 
myself cannot see that I ever did much actual good, 
since my friends praised my sermons for their “fine 
Gallic flavor,” and I made no enemies. 

But there was no rest for my spirit, until the Call 
came again, /the Call that may not be slighted, I and bade 
me leave my sheltered place, my pleasant lines, and go 
among the poor, to save my own soul alive. 

That is why and how the Bishop, my old and dear 
friend, after long argument and many protests, at length 
yielded and had me transferred from fashionable St. 
Jean Baptiste’s to the poverty-stricken missionary parish 
of sodden laboring folk in a South Carolina coast-town: 
he meant to cure me, the good man! I should have the 
worst at the outset. 

“And I hope you understand,” said he, sorrowfully, 
“that this step practically closes your career. Such a 
pity, for you could have gone so far! You might even 
have worn the red hat. It is not hoping too much that 
the last De Ranee, the namesake of the great Abbe, might 
have finished as an American cardinal! But God’s will 
be done. If you must go, you must go.” 

I said, respectfully, that I had to go. 

“Well, then, go and try it out to the uttermost,” said 
the Bishop. “And it may be that, if you do not kill 
yourself with overwork, you may return to me cured, 


SLIPPY McGEE 


12 

when you see the futility of the task you wish to un¬ 
dertake.” But I was never again to see his kind face in 
this world. 

And then, as if to cut me off yet more completely 
from all ties, as if to render my decision irrevocable, it 
was permitted of Providence that the w r heel of my for¬ 
tune should take one last revolution. Henri Dupuis 
of the banking house which bore his name shot himself 
through the head one fine morning, and as he had been 
my guardian and was still the executor of my father’s 
estate, the whole De Ranee fortune went down with 
him. All of it. Even the old house went, the old house 
which had sheltered so many of the name these two 
hundred years. If I could have grieved for anything it 
would have been that. Nothing was left except the 
modest private fortune long since secured to my mother 
by my father’s affection. It had been a bridal gift, in¬ 
tended to cover her personal expenses, her charities, and 
her pretty whims. Now it was to stand between her and 
want. 

Stripped all but bare, and with one servant left of 
all our staff, we turned our backs upon our old life, 
our old home, and faced the world anew, in a strange 
place where nothing was familiar, and where I who had 
begun so differently was destined to grow into what I 
have since become—just an old priest, with but small 
reputation outside of his few friends and poor work¬ 
ing-folks. There! That is quite enough of me! 

There was one pleasant feature of our new home 
that rejoiced me for my mother’s sake. From the 
very first she found neighbors who were friendly and 
charming. Now my mother, when we came to Apple- 


APPLEBORO 


13 


boro, was still a beautiful woman, fair and rosy, with 
a profusion of blonde cendre curls just beginning to 
whiten, a sweet and arch face, and eyes of clearest hazel, 
valanced with jet. She had been perhaps the loveliest 
and most beloved woman of that proud and select cir¬ 
cle which is composed of families descended from the 
old noblesse, the most exclusive circle of New Orleans 
society. And, as she said, nothing could change nor 
alter the fact that no matter what happened to us, we 
were still De Ranees! 

“Ah! And was it, then, a De Ranee who had the 
holy Mother of God painted in a family picture, with 
a scroll issuing from her lips addressing him as ‘My 
Cousin’?” I asked, slyly. 

“If it was, nobody in the world had a better right!” 
said she stoutly. 

Thus the serene and unquestioning faith of their esti¬ 
mate of themselves in the scheme of things, as evidenced 
by these Carolina folk around her, caused Madame De 
Ranee neither surprise nor amusement. She understood. 
She shared many of their prejudices, and she of all 
women could appreciate a pride that was almost equal 
to her own. When they initiated her into the inevitable 
and inescapable Carolina game of Matching Grandfa¬ 
thers, she always had a Roland for their Oliver; and as 
they generally came back with an Oliver to match her 
Roland, all the players retired with equal honors and 
mutual respect. Every door in Appleboro at once 
opened wide to Madame De Ranee. The difference in 
religion was obviated by the similarity of Family. 

Fortunately, too, the Church and Parish House were 
not in the mill district itself, a place shoved aside, full 


SLIPPY McGEE 


14 

of sordid hideousness, ribboned with railroad tracks, 
squalid with boarding-houses never free from the 
smell of bad cooking, sinister with pawnshops, miserable 
with depressingly ugly rows of small houses where the 
hands herded, and all of it darkened by the grim shadow 
of the great red brick mills themselves. Instead, our 
Church sits on a tree-shaded corner in the old town, and 
the roomy white-piazza’d Parish House is next door, 
embowered in the pleasantest of all gardens. 

That garden reconciled my mother to her exile, for 
I am afraid she had regarded Appleboro with some¬ 
what of the attitude of the castaway sailor toward a 
desert island—a refuge after shipwreck, but a desert 
island nevertheless, a place which cuts off one from one’s 
world. And when at first the poor, uncouth, sullen 
creatures who were a part of my new charge, fright¬ 
ened and dismayed her, there was always the garden to 
fly to for consolation. If she couldn’t plant seeds of 
order and cleanliness and morality and thrift in the 
sterile soil of poor folks’ minds, she could always plant 
seeds of color and beauty and fragrance in her garden 
and be surer of the result. That garden was my delight, 
too. I am sure no other equal space ever harbored so 
many birds and bees and butterflies; and its scented 
dusks was the paradise of moths. Great wonderful fel¬ 
lows clothed in kings’ raiment, little chaps colored like 
flowers and seashells and rainbows, there the airy 
cohorts of the People of the Sky wheeled and danced and 
fluttered. Now my grandfather and my father had 
been the friends of Audubon and of Agassiz, and I my¬ 
self had been the correspondent of Riley and Scudder 
and Henry Edwards, for I love the People of the Sky 


APPLEBORO 


15 


more than all created things. And when I watched them 
in my garden, I am sure it was they who lent my heart 
their wings to lift it above the misery and overwork 
and grief which surrounded me; I am sure I should have 
sunk at times, if God had not sent me my little friends, 
the moths and butterflies. 

Our grounds join Miss Sally Ruth Dexter’s on one 
side and Judge Hammond Mayne’s are just behind us; 
so that the Judge’s black Daddy January can court our 
yellow Clelie over one fence, with coy and delicate love- 
gifts of sugar-cane and sweet-potato pone in season; 
and Miss Sally Ruth’s roosters and ours can whole¬ 
heartedly pick each other’s eyes out through the other 
all the year round. These are fowls with so firm a faith 
in the Mosaic code of an eye for an eye that when Miss 
Sally Ruth has six blind of the right eye we have five 
blind of the left. We are at times stung by the Mayne 
bees, but freely and bountifuily supplied with the Mayne 
honey, a product of fine flavor. And our little dog 
Pitache made it the serious business of his life to keep 
the Mayne cats in what he considered their proper 
bounds. 

Major Appleby Cartwright, our neighbor to the other 
side of Miss Sally Ruth, has a theory that not alone 
by our fruits, but by our animals, shall we be known 
for what we are. He insists that Pitache wags his tail 
and barks in French and considers all cats Protestants, 
and that Miss Sally Ruth’s hens are all Presbyterians 
at heart, in spite of the fact that her roosters are Mor¬ 
mons. The Major likewise insists that you couldn’t 
possibly hope to know the real Judge Hammond Mayne 
unless you knew his pet cats. You admire that calm 


16 


SLIPPY McGEE 


and imperturbable dignity, that sphinxlike and yet vigi¬ 
lant poise of bearing which has made Judge Mayne so 
notable an ornament of the bench? It is purely feline; 
‘ ‘ He caught it from his cats, suh: he caught every God- 
blessed bit of it from his cats!” 

As one may perceive, we have delicious neighbors! 

When we had been settled in Appleboro a little more 
than a year, and I had gotten the parish wheels run¬ 
ning fairly smooth, we discovered that by my mother’s 
French house-keeping, that exquisitely careful house¬ 
keeping which uses everything and wastes nothing, my 
salary was going to be quite sufficient to cover our mod¬ 
est manage, thus leaving my mother’s own income prac¬ 
tically intact. We could use it in the parish; but there 
was so much to be done for that parish that we were 
rather at a loss where to begin, or what one thing to 
accomplish among so many things crying aloud. But 
finally, tackling what seemed to us the worst of these 
crying evils, we were able to turn the two empty rooms 
upstairs into what Madame pleasantly called Guest 
Rooms, thus remedying, to the best of our ability, the 
absolute lack of any accommodation for the sick and in¬ 
jured poor. And as time passed, these Guest Rooms, 
so greatly needed, proved not how much but how little 
we could do. We could only afford to maintain two 
beds on our small allowance, for they had to be abso¬ 
lutely free, to help those for whom they were intended— 
poor folks in immediate and dire need, for whom the 
town had no other place except an insanitary room in 
the jail. You could be born and baptized in the Guest 
Rooms, or shriven and sent thence in hope. More often 
you were coaxed back to health under my mother’s nurs- 


APPLEBORO 17 

ing and Clelie’s cooking and the skill of Doctor Walter 
Westmoreland. 

No bill ever came to the Parish House from Dr. 
Walter Westmoreland, whom my poor people look upon 
as a direct act of Providence in their behalf. He is an 
enormous man, big and ruddy and baldheaded and clean¬ 
shaven, with the shoulders of a coal-heaver and legs like 
a pair of twin oaks. He is rather absent-minded, but he 
never forgets the down-and-out Guest Roomers, and he 
has a genius for remembering the mill-children. These 
are his dear and special charge. 

Westmoreland is a great doctor who chooses to live 
in a small town; he says you can save as many lives 
in a little town as a big one, and folks need you more. 

He is a socialist who looks upon rich people as being 
merely poor people with money; an idealist, who will tell 
you bluntly that revelations have n *t ceased; they Ve 
only changed for the better. 

Westmoreland has the courage of a gambler and the 
heart of a little child. He likes to lay a huge hand upon 
my shoulder and tell me to my teeth that heaven is a V** 
habit of heart and hell a condition of liver. I do not 
always agree with him; but along with everybody else 
in Appleboro, I love him. Of all the many goodnesses 
that God has shown me, I do not count it least that this 
good and kind man was sent in our need, to heal and 
befriend the broken and friendless waifs and strays 
who found for a little space a resting place in our Guest 
Rooms. 

And when I look back I know now that not lightly nor 
fortuitously was I uprooted from my place and my peo¬ 
ple and sent hither to impinge upon the lives of many 


18 


SLIPPY McGEE 


"who were to be dearer to me than all that had gone be¬ 
fore ; I was not idly Sent to know and love Westmoreland, 
and Mary Virginia, and Laurence; and, above all, Slippy 
McGee, whom we of Appleboro call the Butterfly Man. 


CHAPTER II 


THE COMING OF SLIPPY MC GEE 

O N a cold gray morning in December two mem¬ 
bers of my flock, Poles who spoke but little 
English and that little very badly, were on 
their way to their daily toil in the canning factory. It 
is a long walk from the Poles’ quarters to the factory, 
and the workpeople oust start early, for one is fined half 
an hour’s time if < ne is five minutes late. The short¬ 
cut is down the railroad tracks that run through the 
mill district—for which cause we bury a yearly toll of 
the children of the poor. 

Just beyond the freight sheds, signal tower, and water 
tank, is a grade crossing where so many terrible things 
have happened that the colored people call that place 
Dead Man’s Crossin’ and warn you not to go by there 
of nights because the signal tower is haunted and Things 
lurk in the rank growth behind the water tank, coming 
out to show themselves after dark. If you must pass 
it then you would better turn your coat inside out, pull 
down your sleeves over your hands, and be very careful 
to keep three fingers twisted for a Sign. This is a 
specific against most ha’nts, though by no means able to 
scare away all of them. Those at Dead Man’s Crossin’ 
are peculiarly malignant and hard to scare. Maum 
Jinkey Delette saw one there once, coming down the 
track faster than an express train, bigger than a cow, 

19 


20 


SLIPPY McGEE 


and waving both his legs in his hands. Poor old Maum 
dinkey was so scared that she chattered her new false 
teeth out of her mouth, and she never found those teeth 
to the day of her death, but had to mumble along as best 
she could without them. 

Hurrying by Dead Man’s Crossin’, the workmen 
stumbled over a man lying beside the tracks; his cloth¬ 
ing was torn to shreds, he was wet with the heavy night 
dew and covered with dirt, cinders, and partly congealed 
blood, for his right leg had been ground to pulp. Peer¬ 
ing at this horrible object in the wan dusk of the early 
morning, they thought he was dead like most of the 
others found there. 

For a moment the men hesitated, wondering whether 
it would n’t be better to leave him there to be found and 
removed by folks with more time at their disposal. One 
doesn’t like to lose time and be consequently fined, on 
account of stopping to pick up a dead tramp; particu¬ 
larly when Christmas is drawing near and money so 
much needed that every penny counts. 

The thing on the ground, regaining for a fraction of a 
second a glint of half-consciousness, quivered, moaned 
feebly, and lay still again. Humanity prevailing, the 
Poles looked about for help, but as yet the place was 
quite deserted. Grumbling, they wrenched a shutter 
off the Agent’s window, lifted the mangled tramp upon 
it, and made straight for the Parish House; when acci¬ 
dents such as this happened to men such as this, were n’t 
the victims incontinently turned over to the Parish 
House people? Indeed, there wasn’t any place else for 
them, unless one excepted the rough room at the jail; 
and the average small town jail—ours wasn’t any excep- 


THE COMING OF SLIPPY McGEE 21 


tion to the rule—is a place where a decent veterinary 
would scruple to put a sick cur. With him the Poles 
brought his sole luggage, a package tied up in oilskin, 
which they had found lying partly under him. 

We had become accustomed to these sudden inroads of 
misfortune, so he was carried upstairs to the front Guest 
Room, fortunately just then empty. The Poles turned 
over to me the heavy package found with him, stolidly 
requested a note to the Boss explaining their necessary 
tardiness, and hurried away. They had done what they 
had to do, and they had no further interest in him. No¬ 
body had any interest in one of the unknown tramps who 
got themselves killed or crippled at Dead Man’s Crossin \ 

The fellow was shockingly injured and we had some 
strenuous days and nights with him, for that which had 
been a leg had to come off at the knee; he had lain in the 
cold for some hours, he had sustained a frightful shock, 
and he had lost considerable blood. I am sure that in 
the hands of any physician less skilled and determined 
than Westmoreland he must have gone out. But West¬ 
moreland, with his jaw set, followed his code and fenced 
with death for this apparently worthless and forfeited 
life, using all his skill and finesse to outwit the great 
Enemy; in spite of which, so attenuated was the man’s 
chance that we were astonished when he turned the 
corner—very, very feebly—and we did n’t have to place 
another pine box in the potter’s field, alongside other un¬ 
marked mounds whose occupants were other unknown 
men, grim causes of Dead Man’s Crossin’s sinister 
name. 

The effects of the merciful drugs that had kept him 
quiet in time wore away. Our man woke up one fore- 


SLIPPY McGEE 


22 

noon clear-headed, if hollow-eyed and mortally weak. 
He looked about the unfamiliar room with wan curiosity, 
then his eyes came to Clelie and myself, but he did not 
return the greetings of either. He just stared; he 
asked no questions. Presently, very feebly, he tried to 
move,—and found himself a cripple. He fell back upon 
his pillow, gasping. A horrible scream broke from his 
lips—a scream of brute rage and mortal fear, as of a 
trapped wild beast. He began to revile heaven and 
earth, the doctor, myself. Clelie, clapping her hands 
over her outraged ears, fled as if from fiends. Indeed, 
never before nor since have I heard such a frightful, in¬ 
human power of profanity, such hideous oaths and 
threats. When breath failed him he lay spent and 
trembling, his chest rising and falling to his choking 
gasps. 

‘‘You had better be thankful your life is spared you, 
young man,” I said a trifle sharply, my nerves being 
somewhat rasped; for I had helped Westmoreland 
through more than one dreadful night, and I had sat 
long hours by his pillow, waiting for what seemed the 
passing of a soul. 

He glared. “Thankful?” he screamed, “Thankful, 
hell! 1 ’ve got to have two good legs to make any sort, of 
a getawajr, haven’t I? Well, have I got ’em? I’m 
down and out for fair, that’s what! Thankful? You 
make me sick! Honest to God, when you gas like that I 
feel like bashing in your brain, if you’ve got any! You 
and your thankfulness! ” He turned his quivering face 
and stared at the wall, winking. I wondered, heartsick, 
if I had ever seen a more hopelessly unprepossessing 
creature. 


THE COMING OF SLIPPY McGEE 23 


It was not so much physical, his curious ugliness; the 
dreadful thing was that it seemed to be his spirit which 
informed his flesh, an inherent unloveliness of soul upon 
which the body was modeled, worked out faithfully, and 
so made visible. Figure to yourself one with the fine 
shape of the welter-weight, steel-muscled, lithe, power¬ 
ful, springy, slim in the hips and waist, broad in the 
shoulders; the arms unusually long, giving him a ter¬ 
rible reach, the head round, well-shaped, covered with 
thick reddish hair; cold, light, and intelligent eyes, full of 
animosity and suspicion, reminding you unpleasantly of 
the rattlesnake’s look, wary, deadly, and ready to strike. 
When he thought, his forehead wrinkled. His lips shut 
upon each other formidably and without softness, and 
the jaws thrust forward with the effect as of balled 
fists. One ear was slightly larger than the other, hav¬ 
ing the appearance of a swelling upon the lobe. In this 
unlovely visage, filled with distrust and concentrated 
venom, only the nose retained an incongruous and unex¬ 
pected niceness. It was a good straight nose, yet it had 
something of the pleasant tiptiltedness of a child’s. It 
was the sort of nose which should have complemented 
a mouth formed for spontaneous laughter. It looked 
lonesome and out of place in that set and lowering 
countenance, to which the red straggling stubble of 
beard sprouting over jaws and throat lent a more sinister 
note. 

We had had many a sad and terrible case in our Guest 
Rooms, but somehow this seemed the saddest, hardest 
and most hopeless we had yet encountered. 

For three weary weeks had we struggled with him, 
until the doctor, sighing with physical relief, said he was 


24 SLIPPY McGEE 

out of danger and needed only such nursing as he was 
sure to get. 

“One does one’s duty as one finds it, of course,” said 
the big doctor, looking down at the unpromising face 
on the pillow, and shaking his head. “Yes, yes, yes, 
one must do what’s right, on the face of it, come what 
will. There’s no getting around that!” He glanced at 
me, a shadow in his kind gray eyes. “But there are 
times, my friend, when I wonder! Now, this morning I 
had to tell a working man his wife’s got to die. There’s 
no help and no hope—she’s got to die, and she a mother 
of young children. So I have to try desperately,” said 
the doctor, rubbing his nose, “to cling tooth and claw to 
the hope that there is Something behind the scenes that 
knows the forward-end of things—sin and sorrow and 
disease and suffering and death things—and uses them 
always far some beneficent purpose. But in the mean¬ 
time the mother dies, and here you and I have been used 
to save alive a poor useless devil of a one-legged tramp, 
probably without his consent and against his will, be¬ 
cause it had to be and we couldn’t do anything else! 
Now, why? I can’t help but wonder!” 

We looked down again, the two of us, at the face on 
the pillow. And I wondered also, with even greater 
cause than the doctor; for I had opened the oilskin 
package the Poles found, and it had given me occasion 
for fear, reflection, and prayer. I was startled and 
alarmed beyond words, for it contained tools of a curious 
and unusual type,—not such tools as workmen carry 
abroad in the light of day. 

There was no one to whom I might confide that un¬ 
pleasant discovery. I simply could not terrify my 


THE COMING OF SLIPPY McGEE 25 


mother, nor could I in common decency burden the al¬ 
ready overburdened doctor. Nor is our sheriff one to 
turn to readily; he is not a man whose intelligence or 
heart one may admire, respect, or depend upon. My 
guest had come to me with empty pockets and a bur¬ 
glar’s kit; a hint of that, and the sheriff had camped on 
the Parish House front porch with a Winchester across 
his knees and handcuffs jingling in his pockets. No, I 
couldn’t consult the law. 

I had yet a deeper and a better reason for waiting, 
which I find it rather hard to set down in cold words. 

It is this: that as I grow older I have grown more and 
more convinced that not fortuitously, not by chance, 
never without real and inner purposes, are we allowed to ^ 
come vitally into each other’s lives. I have walked up 
the steep sides of Calvary to find out that when another 
wayfarer pauses for a space beside us, it is because 
one has something to give, the other something to re¬ 
ceive. 

So, upon reflection, I took that oilskin package 
weighted down with the seven deadly sins over 'to the 
church, and hid it under the statue of St. Stanislaus, 
N'whom my Poles love, and before whom they come to kneel 
and pray for particular favors. I tilted the saint back 
upon his wooden stand, and thrust that package up to 
where his hands fold over the sheaf of lilies he carries. 
St. Stanislaus is a beautiful and most holy youth. No 
one would ever suspect him of hiding under his brown 
habit a burglar’s kit! 

When I had done this, and stopped to say three Hail 
Marys for guidance, I went back to the little room called 
my study, where my books and papers and my butterfly 


26 


SLIPPY McGEE 


cabinets and collecting outfits were kept, and set myself 
seriously to studying my files of newspapers, beginning 
at a date a week preceding my man's appearance. 
Then: 

Slippy McGee 

Makes Good His Name Once More. 

Slips One Over On The Police. 

Noted Burglar Escapes. 

said the glaring headlines in the New York papers. The 
dispatches were dated from Atlanta, and when I turned 
to the Atlanta papers I found them, too, headlining the 
escape of “Slippy McGee.’’ 

I learned that “the slickest crook in America” find¬ 
ing himself somewhat hampered in his native haunts, the 
seething underworld of New York, because the police sus¬ 
pected him of certain daring and mysterious burglaries 
although they had no positive proof against him, had 
chosen to shift his base of operations South for awhile. 
But the Southern authorities had been urgently warned 
to look out for him; in consequence they had been so 
close upon his heels that he had been surrounded while 
“on a job.” Half an hour later, and he would have 
gotten away with his plunder; but, although they were 
actually upon him, by what seemed a miracle of daring 
and of luck he slipped through their fingers, escaped 
under their very noses, leaving no clue to his where¬ 
abouts. He was supposed to be still in hiding in At¬ 
lanta, though as he had no known confederates and al¬ 
ways worked alone and unaided, the police were at a loss 
for information. The man had simply vanished, after 
his wont, as if the earth had opened and swallowed 
him. The papers gave rather full accounts of some of 


THE COMING OF SLIPPY McGEE 27 

his past exploits, from which one gathered that Slippy 
McGee <was a very noted personage in his chosen field. I 
sat for a long time staring at those papers, and my 
thoughts were uneasy ones. What should I do ? 

I presently decided that I could and must question 
my guest. So far he had volunteered no information 
beyond the curt statement that his name was John Flint 
and he was a hobo because he liked the trade. He had 
been stealing a ride and he had slipped—and when he 
woke up we had him and he hadn’t his leg. And if 
some people knew how to be obliging they’d make a noise 
like a hoop and roll away, so’s other people could pound 
their ear in peace, like that big stiff of a doctor ordered 
them to do. 

As I stood by the bed and studied his sullen, sus¬ 
picious, unfriendly face, I came to the conclusion that if 
this were not McGee himself it could very well be some 
one quite as dangerous. 

“Friend,” said I, “we do not as a rule seek informa¬ 
tion about the guests in these rooms. We do not have 
to; they explain themselves. I should never question 
your assertion that your name is Flint, and I sincerely 
hope it is Flint; but—there are reasons why I must and 
do ask you for certain definite information about your¬ 
self.” 

The hand lying upon the coverlet balled into a fist. 

“If John Flint’s not fancy enough for you,” he sug¬ 
gested truculently, “suppose you call me Percy? Some 
peach of a moniker, Percy, ain’t it?” 

“Percy?” 

“Sure, Percy,” he grinned impudently. “But if you 
got a grouch against Percy, can it, and make me Algy. 


28 SLIPPY McGEE 

/ don’t mind. It’s not me beefing about monikers; it’s 
you. ’ ’ 

“lam also,” said I, regarding him steadily and ignor¬ 
ing his flippancy, “I am also obliged to ask you what is 
your occupation—when you are not stealing rides?” 

“Looks like it might be answering questions just now, 
don’t it ? What you want to know for ? Whatever it is, 
I’m not able to do it now, am I ? But as you ’re so nat¬ 
urally bellyaching to know, why, I’ve been in the ring. ’ ’ 

“So I presumed. Thank you,” said I, politely. 
“And your name is John Flint, or Percy, or Algy, just as 
I choose. Percy and Algy are rather unusual names for 
a gentleman who has been in the ring, don’t you think ? ’ 9 

“I think,” he snarled, turned suddenly ferocious, 
“that I’m named what I dam’ please to be named, and 
no squeals from skypilots about it, neither. Say! what 
you driving at, anyhow? If what I tell you ain’t satis¬ 
fying, suppose you slip over a moniker to suit yourself— 
and go away! ’ ’ 

* ‘ Oh! Suppose then, ’ ’ said I, without taking my eyes 
from his, “suppose, then, that I chose to call you— 
Slippy McGee?” 

I am sure that only his bodily weakness kept him from 
flying at my throat. As it was, his long arms with the 
hands upon them outstretched like a beast’s claws, shot 
out ferociously. His face contracted horribly, and of a 
sudden the sweat burst out upon it so blindingly that he 
had to put up an arm and wipe it away. For a moment 
he lay still, glaring, panting, helpless; while I stood and 
watched him unmoved. 

“Ain’t you the real little Sherlock Holmes, though?” 
he jeered presently. “Got Old Sleuth skinned for fair 


THE COMING OF SLIPPY McGEE 29 


and Nick Carter eating out of your hand! You damned 
skypilot!” His voice cracked. “You ’re all alike! 
Get a man on his back and then put the screws on him! ’ ’ 

I made no reply; only a great compassion for this mis¬ 
taken and miserable creature surged like a wave over my 
heart. 

“For God’s sake don’t stand there staring like a bug- 
house owl!” he gritted. “Well, what you going to do? 
Bawl for the bulls? What put you wise?” 

“Help you to get well. No. I opened your bag—and 
looked up the newspapers,” I answered succinctly. 

II Huh! A fat lot of good it ’ll do me to get well now, 
won’t it? You think I ought to thank you for butting 
in and keeping me from dying without knowing anything 
about it, don’t you? Well, you got another think com¬ 
ing. I don’t. Ever hear of a pegleg in the ring? Ever 
hear of a one-hoofed dip? A long time I’d be Slippy 
McGee playing cat-and-mouse with the bulls, if I had to 
leave some of my legs home when I needed them right 
there on the job, wouldn’t I? Oh, sure!” 

“And was it,” I wondered, “such a fine thing to be 
Slippy McGee, flying from the police, that one should 
lament his—er—disappearance ? ’ ’ 

His eyes widened. He regarded me with pity as well 
as astonishment. 

“Didn’t you read the papers?” he wondered in his 
turn. 11 There don’t many travel in my class, skypilot! 
Why, I have n’t got any equals—the best of them trail a 
mile behind. Ask the bulls, if you want to know about 
Slippy McGee! And I let the happy dust alone. Most 
dips are dopes, but I was too slick; I cut it out. I 
knew if the dope once gets you, then the bulls get next. 


30 


SLIPPY McGEE 


Not for Slippy. I Ve kept my head clear, and that’s 
how I Ve muddled theirs. They never get next to any¬ 
thing until I Ve cleaned up and dusted. Why, honest to 
God, I can open any box made, easy as easy, just like I 
can put it all over any bull alive! That is, ’ ’ a spasm 
twisted his face and into his voice crept the acute 
anguish of the artist deprived of all power to create, 
‘‘that is, I could—until I made that last getaway on a 
freight, and this happened.” 

“I am sorry,” said I soothingly, “that you have lost 
your leg, of course. But better to lose your leg than 
your soul, my son. Why, how do you know—” 

He writhed. “Can it!” he implored. “Cut it out! 
Ain’t I up against enough now, for God’s sake? Down 
and out—and nothing to do but have my soul curry- 
combed and mashfed by a skypilot with both his legs and 
all his mouth on him! Ain’t it hell, though? Say, you 
better send for the cops. I’d rather stand for the pen 
than the preaching. What’d you do with my bag, 
anyway ? ’ ’ 

“But I really have no idea of preaching to you; and 
I would rather not send for the police—afterwards, when 
you are better, you may do so if you choose. You are a 
free agent. As for your bag, why—it is—it is—in the 
keeping of the Church.” 

“Huh!” said he, and twisted his mouth cynically. 
‘ 4 Huh! Then it’s good-bye tools, I suppose. I’m no 
churchmember, thank God, but I’ve heard that once the 
Church gets her clamps on anything worth while all 
hell can’t pry her loose.” 

Now I don’t know why, but at that, suddenly and in- 


THE COMING OF SLIPPY McGEE 31 

explicable as if I had glimpsed a ray of light, I felt 
cheered. 

“Why, that’s it exactly!” said I, smiling. “Once the 
Church gets real hold of a thing—or a man—worth while, 
she holds on so fast that all hell can’t pry her loose. 
Won’t you try to remember that, my son?” 

“If it’s a joke, suck the marrow out of it yourself,” 
said he sourly. “It don’t listen so horrible funny to 
me. And you have n’t peeped yet about what you ’re 
going to do. I’m waiting to hear. I’m real inter¬ 
ested.” 

“Why, I really don’t know yet,” said I, still cheer¬ 
fully. “Suppose we wait and see? Here you are, safe 
and harmless enough for the present. And God is good; 
perhaps He knows that you and I may need each other 
more than you and the police need each other—who can 
tell? I should simply set myself strictly to the task 
of getting entirely well, if I were you—and let it go 
at that.” 

He appeared to reflect; his forehead wrinkled pain¬ 
fully. 

“Devil-dodger,” said he, after a pause, “are you just 
making a noise with your face, or is that on the level ? ’ ’ 

“That’s on the level.” 

His hard and suspicious eyes bored into me. And 
as I held his glance, a hint of wonder and amazement 
crept into his face. 

“God A’mighty! I believe him!” he gasped. And 
then, as if ashamed of that real feeling, he scowled. 

“Say, if you ’re really on the level, I guess you’d 
better not be flashing the name of Slippy McGee around 


32 


SLIPPY McGEE 


promiscuous,*’ he suggested presently. “It won’t do 
either you or me any good, see? And say, parson,— 
forget Percy and Algy. How was I to know you’d be 
so white? And look here: I did know a gink named 
John Flint, once. Only he was called Reddy, because 
he’d got such a blazing red head and whiskers. He’s 
croaked, so he would n’t mind me using his moniker, see¬ 
ing it’s not doing him any good now.” 

“Let us agree upon John Flint,” I decided. 

“Help yourself,” he agreed, equably. 

Clelie, with wrath and disapproval written upon every 
stiffened line, brought him his broth, which he took with 
a better grace than I had yet witnessed. He even added 
a muttered word of thanks. 

“ It’s funny,” he reflected, when the yellow woman 
had left the room with the empty bowl, “it’s sure 
funny, but d ’ye know, I’m lots easier in my mind, 
knowing you know, and not having to think up a hard- 
luck gag to hand out to you? I hate like hell to have 
to lie, except of course when I need a smooth spiel for 
the cops. I guess I ’ll snooze a bit now,” he added, as 
I rose to leave the room. And as I reached the door: 

‘ ‘ Parson ? ’ ’ 

“Well?” 

“Why—er—come in a bit to-night, will you? That 
is, if you’ve got time. And look here: don’t you get the 
notion in your bean I’m just some little old two-by-four 
guy of a yegg or some poor nut of a dip. I’m not 
Why, I’ve been the whole show and manager besides. 
Yep, I’m Slippy McGee himself.” 

He paused, to let this sink into my consciousness. I 
must confess that I was more profoundly impressed 


THE COMING OF SLIPPY McGEE 33 

than even he had any idea of. And then, magnani¬ 
mously, he added: “You’re sure some white man, 
parson. 7 7 

“Thank you, John Flint, 77 said I, with due modesty. 

Heaven know^s why I should have been pleased and 
hopeful, but I was. My guest was a criminal; he had n 7 t 
shown the slightest sign of compunction or of shame; 
instead, he had betrayed a brazen pride. And yet— 
I felt hopeful. Although I knew I was tacitly conceal¬ 
ing a burglar, my conscience remained clear and un¬ 
clouded, and I had a calm intuitive assurance of right. 
So deeply did I feel this that when I went over to the 
church I placed before St. Stanislaus a small lamp full 
of purest olive oil, which is expensive. I felt that he 
deserved some compensation for hiding that package 
under his sheaf of lilies. 

The authorities of our small town knew, of course, that 
another forlorn wretch was being cared for at the Parish 
House. But had not the Parish House sheltered other 
such vagabonds? The sheriff saw no reason to give 
himself the least concern, beyond making the most casual 
inquiry. If I wanted the fellow, he was only too glad 
to let me keep him. And who, indeed, would look for a 
notorious criminal in a Parish House Guest Room ? Who 
would connect that all too common occurrence, a tramp 
maimed by the railroad, with the mysterious disappear¬ 
ance of the cracksman, Slippy McGee? So, for the 
present, I could feel sure that the man was safe. 

And in the meantime, in the orderly proceeding of 
everyday life, while he gained strength under my 
mother’s wise and careful nursing and Westmoreland’s 
wise and careful overseeing, there came to him those 


34 


SLIPPY McGEE 


who were instruments for good—my mother first, whom, 
like Clelie, he never called anything but “Madame” 
and whom, like Clelie, he presently obeyed with unques¬ 
tioning and childlike readiness. Now, Madame is a truly 
wonderful person when she deals with people like him. 
Never for a moment lowering her own natural and beau¬ 
tiful dignity, but without a hint of condescension, 
Madame manages to find the just level upon which both 
can stand as on common ground; then, without noise, 
she helps, and she conveys the impression that thus 
noiselessly to help is the only just, natural and beautiful 
thing for any decent person to do, unless, perhaps, it 
might be to receive in the like spirit. 

Judge Mayne’s son, Laurence, full of a fresh and boy¬ 
ish enthusiasm, was such another instrument. He had 
a handsome, intelligent face, a straight and beautiful 
body, and the pleasantest voice in the world. His mother 
in her last years had been a fretful invalid, and to meet 
her constant demands the judge and his son had de¬ 
veloped an angelic patience with weakness. They were 
both rather quiet and undemonstrative, this father and 
son; the older man, in fact had a stern visage at first 
glance, until one learned to know it as the face of a 
man trained to restraint and endurance. As for the 
boy, no one could long resist the shrewd, kind youngster, 
who could spend an hour with the most unlikely in¬ 
valid and leave him all the better for it. I was unusually 
busy just then, Clelie frankly hated and feared the man 
upstairs, my mother had her hands full, and there were 
many heavy and lonesome hours which Laurence set 
himself the task of filling. I left this to the boy him¬ 
self, offering no suggestions. 


THE COMING OF SLIPPY McGEE 


35 


“Padre,” said the boy to me, some time later, “that 
chap upstairs is the hardest nut I ever tried to crack. 
There ’ve been times when I felt tempted to crack him 
with a sledge-hammer, if you want the truth. You 
know, he always seemed to like me to read to him, but 
I’ve never been able to discover whether or not he liked 
what I read. He never asked me a single question, he 
never seemed interested enough to make a comment. 
But I think that I’ve made a dent in him at last.” 

“A dent! In Flint ? With what adamantine pick, oh 
hardiest of miners?” 

“With a book. Guess!” 

“I couldn’t. I give up.” 

“The Bible!” said Laurence. 

The Bible! Had I chosen to read it to him, he would 
have resented it, been impervious, suspicious, hostile. I 
looked at the boy’s laughing face, and wondered, and 
wondered. 

“And how,” said I, curious, “did you happen to pitch 
on the Bible?” 

“Why, I got to studying about this chap. I wanted 
something that’d reach him. I was puzzled. And then 
I remembered hearing my father say that the Bible 
is the most interesting book in the world because it’s 
the most personal. There’s something in it for every¬ 
body. So I thought there’d be something in it for 
John Flint, and I tried it on him, "without telling him 
what I was giving him. I just plunged right in, head 
over heels. Lord, Padre, it is a wonderful old book, 
isn’t it? Why, I got so lost in it myself that I forgot 
all about John Flint, until I happened to glance up and 
see that he was up to the eyes in it, just like I was! 


36 


SLIPPY McGEE 


He likes the fights and he gloats over the spoils. He 7 s 
asking for more. I think of turning Paul loose on 
him.” 

“Well, if after the manner of men Paul fought with 
wild beasts at Ephesus,” I said hopefully. “I dare say 
he ’ll be able to hold his own even with John Flint.” 

“I like Paul best of all, myself,” said Laurence. 
“You see, Padre, my father and I have needed a dose of 
Paul more than once—to stiffen our backbones. So I’m 
going to turn the fighting old saint loose on John Flint. 
’By, Padre—I ’ll look in to-morrow—I left poor old 
Elijah up in a cave with no water, and the ravens over¬ 
due!” 

He went down our garden path whistling, his cap on 
the back of his head, and I looked after him with the 
warm and comforting sense that the world is just that 
much better for such as he. 

The boy was now, in his last high school year, plan¬ 
ning to study law—all the Maynes took to law as a duck 
to water. Brave, simple-hearted, direct, clear-thinking, 
scrupulously honorable,—this was one of the diamonds 
used to cut the rough hard surface of Slippy McGee. 


CHAPTER III 


NEIGHBORS 

O N a morning in late March, with a sweet and 
fresh wind blowing, a clear sun shining, and a 
sky so full of soft white woolly clouds that you 
might fancy the sky-people had turned their fleecy flock 
out to graze in the deep blue pastures, Laurence Mayne 
and I brought John Flint downstairs and rolled him out 
into the glad, green garden, in the comfortable wheel¬ 
chair that the mill-people had given us for a Christmas 
present; my mother and Clelie followed, and our little 
dog Pitache marched ahead, putting on ridiculous airs 
of responsibility; he being a dog with a great idea of his 
own importance and wholly given over to the notion that 
nothing could go right if he were not there to superin¬ 
tend and oversee it. 

The wistaria was in her zenith, girdling the tree-tops 
with amethyst; the Cherokee rose had just begun to 
reign, all in snow-white velvet, with a gold crown and 
a green girdle for greater glory; the greedy brown 
grumbling bees came to her table in dusty cohorts, and 
over her green bowers floated her gayer lovers the early 
butterflies, clothed delicately as in kings’ raiment. In 
the corners glowed the ruby-colored Japanese quince, 
and the long sprays of that flower I most dearly love, the 
spring-like spirea which the children call bridal w r reath, 
brushed you gently as you passed the gate. I nevei* 

37 


38 


SLIPPY McGEE 


see it deck itself in bridal white, I never inhale its shy, 
clean scent, without a tightening of the throat, a misting 
of the eyes, a melting of the heart. 

Across our garden and across Miss Sally Ruth Dex¬ 
ter’s you could see in Major Appleby Cartwright’s yard 
the peach trees in pink party dresses, ruffled by the wind. 
Down the paths marched my mother’s daffodils and 
hyacinths, with honey-breathing sweet alyssum in be¬ 
tween. Robins and wrens, orioles and mocking-birds, 
blue jays and jackdaws, thrushes and blue-birds and 
cardinals, all were busy house-building; one heard calls 
and answers, saw flashes of painted wings, followed by 
outbursts of ecstasy. If one should lay one’s ear to the 
ground on such a morning I think one might hear the 
heart of the world. 

“Hallelujah! Risen! Risen!” breathed the glad, 
green things, pushing from the warm mother-mold. 

“Living! Living! Loving! Loving!” flashed' and 
fluted the flying things, joyously. 

"We wheeled our man out into this divine freshness 
of renewed life, stopping the chair under a glossy, stately 
magnolia. My mother and Clelie and Laurence and I 
bustled about to make him comfortable. Pitache stood 
stock still, his tail stuck up like a sternly admonishing 
forefinger, a-bossing everything and everybody. We 
spread a light shawl over the man’s knees, for it is not 
easy to bear a cruel physical infirmity, to see oneself 
marred and crippled, in the growing spring. He looked 
about him, snuffed, and wrinkled his forehead; his eyes 
had something of the wistful, wondering satisfaction of 
an animal’s. He had never sat in a garden before, in 
all his life! Think of it! 


NEIGHBORS 


39 


Whenever we bring one of our Guest Roomers down¬ 
stairs, Miss Sally Ruth Dexter promptly comes to her 
side of the fence to look him over. She came this morn¬ 
ing, looked at our man critically, and showed plain dis¬ 
approval of him in every line of her face. 

On principle Miss Sally Ruth disapproves of most 
men and many women. She does not believe in wasting 
too much sympathy upon people either; she says folks 
get no more than they deserve and generally not half as 
much. 

Miss Sally Ruth Dexter is a rather important person 
in Appleboro. She is fifty-six years old, stout, brown¬ 
eyed, suffers from a congenital incapacity to refrain 
from telling the unwelcome truth when people are madly 
trying to save their faces,—she calls this being frank,— 
-is tactless, independent, generous, and the possessor 
of what she herself complacently refers to as ‘‘a Fig¬ 
ure. 9 ’ 

For a woman so convinced we ’re all full of natural 
and total depravity, unoriginal sinners, worms of the 
dust, and the devil’s natural fire-fodder, Miss Sally 
Ruth manages to retain a simple and unaffected good¬ 
ness of practical charity toward the unelect, such as 
makes one marvel. You may be predestined to be lost, 
but while you ’re here you shall lack no jelly, wine, soup, 
chicken-with-cream, preserves, gumbo, neither such mar¬ 
velous raised bread as Miss Salty Ruth knows how to 
make with a perfection beyond all praise. 

She has a tiny house and a tiny income, which satis¬ 
fies her; she has never married. She told my mother 
once, cheerfully, that she guessed she must be one of 
those born eunuchs of the spirit the Bible mentions— 


40 


SLIPPY McGEE 


it was intended for her, and she was glad of it, for it 
had certainly saved her a sight of worry and trouble. 

There is a cherished legend in our town that Major 
Appleby Cartwright once went over to Savannah on a 
festive occasion and was there joyously entertained by the 
honorable the Chatham Artillery. The Chatham Artil¬ 
lery brews a Punch; insidious, delectable, deceptive, but 
withal a pernicious strong drink that is raging, a wine 
that mocketh and maketh mad. And they gave it to 
Major Appleby Cartwright in copious draughts. 

Coming home upon the heels of this, the major arose, 
put on his Prince Albert, donned his top hat, picked 
a huge bunch of zinnias, and at nine o ’clock in the morn¬ 
ing marched over to Miss Sally Ruth Dexter’s. 

We differ as to certain unimportant details of that 
historic call, but we are in the main agreed upon the 
conversation that ensued. 

“Sally Ruth,” said the major, depositing his bulky 
person in a rocking chair, his hat upon the floor, and 
wiping his forehead with a spotless handkerchief the 
size of a respectable sheet, “Sally Ruth, you like Old 
Maids?” Here he presented the zinnias. 

“Why, I ’ve got a yard full of ’em myself, Major. 
Whatever made you bother to pick ’em? But to whom 
much hath more shall be given, I suppose,” said she, 
resignedly, and put them on the whatnot. 

“Sally Ruth,” said the major solemnly, ignoring 
this indifferent reception of his offering. “Sally Ruth, 
come to think of it, an Old Maid’s a miserable, stiff, 
scentless sort of a flower. You might think, when you 
first glance at ’em, that they ’re just like any other 
flowers, but they ’re not; they ’re without one single, 


NEIGHBORS 41 

solitary redeemin’ particle of sweetness! The Lord 
made ’em for a warnin’ to women. 

“What good under God’s sky does it do you to be an 
old maid, Sally Ruth? You’re fly in’ in the face of 
Providence. No lady should fly in the face of Provi¬ 
dence—she’d a sight better fly to the bosom of some 
man, where she belongs. This mawnin’ I looked out of 
my window and my eye fell upon these unfortunate 
flowers. Right away I thought of you, livin’ over here 
all alone and by yourself, with no man’s bosom to lean 
on—you haven’t really got anything but a few fowls 
and the Lord to love, have you ? And, Sally Ruth, tears 
came to my eyes. Talk not of tears till you have seen 
the tears of warlike men! I believe it would almost 
scare you to death to see me cryin ’, Sally Ruth! I got 
to thinkin’, and I said to myself: ‘Appleby Cartwright, 
you have always done your duty like a man. You 
charged up to the very muzzle of Yankee guns once, 
and you weren’t scared wu’th a damn! Are you goin’ 
to be scared now ? There’s a plain duty ahead of you; 
Sally Ruth’s a fine figure of a woman, and she ought 
to have a man’s bosom to lean on. Go offer Sally Ruth 
yours!’ So here I am, Sally Ruth!” said the major 
valiantly. 

Miss Sally Ruth regarded him critically; then: 

“You ’re drunk, Appleby Cartwright, that’s what’s 
the matter with you. You and your bosom! Why, it’s 
not respectable to talk like that! At your age, too! 
I’m ashamed of you! ’ ’ 

“I was a little upset, over in Savannah,” admitted 
the major. “Those fellows must have gotten me to 
swallow over a gallon of their infernal brew—and it 


42 


SLIPPY McGEE 


goes down like silk, too. Listen at me: don’t you ever 
let ’em make you drink a gallon of that punch, Sally 
Euth.’ ’ 

“I’ve seen its effects before. Go home and sleep it 
off, ’ ’ said Miss Sally Euth, not unkindly. 1 ‘ If you came 
over to warn me about filling up on Artillery Punch, 
your duty’s done—I’ve never been entertained by the 
Chatham Artillery, and I don’t ever expect to be. I 
suppose it was intended for you to be a born goose, 
Appleby, so it’d be a waste of time for me to fuss with 
you about it. Go on home, now, do, and let Caesar put 
you to bed. Tell him to tie a wet rag about your head 
and to keep it wet. That ’ll help to cool you off.” 

“Sally Euth,” said the major, laying his hand upon 
his heart and trying desperately to focus her with an 
eye that would waver in spite of him, “ Sally Euth, 
somebody ’s got to do something for you, and it might 
as well be me. My God, Sally Euth, you We settin’ like 
clabber! It’s a shame; it’s a cryin’ shame, for you ’re 
a fine woman. I don’t mean to scare or flutter you, 
Sally Euth,—no gentleman ought to scare or flutter a 
lady—but I’m offerin’ you my hand and heart; here’s 
my bosom for you to lean on.” 

“That Savannah brew is worse even than I thought— 
it’s run the man stark crazy,” said Miss Sally Euth, 
viewing him with growing concern. 

“Me crazy! Why, I’m askin’ you,” said the major 
with awful dignity, *‘ I’m askin’ you to marry me!” 

“Marry you? Marry fiddlesticks! Shucks!” said 
the lady. 

“You won’t?” Amazement made him sag down in 
his chair. He stared at her owl-like. “Woman,” said 


NEIGHBORS 43 

he solemnly, “when I see my duty I try to do it. But 
I warn you—it’s your last chance.” 

“I hope,” said Miss Sally Ruth tartly, “that it’s my 
last chance to make a born fool of myself. Why, you 
old gasbag, if I had to stay in the same house with you 
I’d be tempted to stick a darning needle in you to hear 
you explode! Appleby, I’m like that woman that had 
a chimney that smoked, a dog that growled, a parrot 
that swore, and a cat that stayed out nights; she didn’t 
need a man—and no more do I. ’ ’ 

“Sally Ruth,” said the major feelingly, “when I 
came here this mawnin’ it wasn’t for my own good— 
it was for yours. And to think this is all the thanks I 
get for bein’ willin’ to sacrifice myself! My God! The 
ingratitude of women!” 

He looked at Miss Sally Ruth, and Miss Sally Ruth 
looked at him. And then suddenly, without a moment’s 
warning, Miss Sally Ruth rose, and took Major Appleby 
Cartwright, who on a time had charged Yankee guns 
and had n’t been scared wu’th a damn, by the ear. She 
tugged, and the major rose, as one pulled upward by 
his bootstraps. 

“Ouch! Turn loose! I take it back! The devil! 
It wasn’t intended for any mortal man to marry you— 
Sally Ruth, I would n’t marry you now for forty billion 
dollars and a mule! Turn loose, you hussy! Turn 
loose!” screeched the major. 

Unheeding his anguished protests, which brought 
Judge Hammond Mayne on the run, thinking somebody 
was being murdered, Miss Sally Ruth marched her suitor 
out of her house and led him to her front gate. Here she 
paused, jaws firmly set, eyes glittering, and, as with 


44 


SLIPPY McGEE 


hooks of steel, took firm hold upon the gallant major’s 
other ear. Then she shook him; his big crimson coun¬ 
tenance, resembling a huge overripe tomato, waggled 
deliriously to and fro. 

“I was born’ — shake —“an old maid,”— shake, shake, 
shake —“I have lived—by the grace of God”— shake, 
shake, shake —“an old maid, and I expect”— shake — 
“to die an old maid! I don’t propose to have”— shake 
—“an old windbag offering me his blubbery old bosom” 
— shake, shake, SHAKE —“at this time of my life!— 
and don’t you forget it, Appleby Cartwright! THERE! 
You go back home”— shake, shake, shake —“and sober 
up, you old gander, you!” 

Major Appleby Cartwright stood not upon the order 
of his going, but went at once, galloping as if a company 
of those Yankees with whom he had once fought were 
upon his hindquarters with fixed bayonets. 

However, they being next-door neighbors and friends 
of a lifetime’s standing, peace was finally patched up. 
In Appleboro we do not mention this historic meeting 
when either of the participants can hear us, though it is 
one of our classics and no home is complete without it. 
The Major ever afterward eschewed Artillery Punch. 

This morning, over the fence, Miss Sally Ruth ad¬ 
dressed our invalid directly and without prelude, after 
her wont. She doesn’t believe in beating about the 
bush: 

“The wages of walking up and down the earth and 
going to and fro in it, tramping like Satan, is a lost 
leg. Not that it wasn’t intended you should lose yours 
—and I hope and pray it will be a lesson to you. ’ ’ 


/ 


NEIGHBORS 


45 


* 4 Well, take it from me,” he said grimly, 4 ‘there’s 
nobody but me collecting my wages.” 

A quick approval of this plain truth showed in Miss 
Sally Ruth’s snapping eyes. 

‘ 1 Come! ’ ’ said she, briskly. 11 If you’ve got sense 
enough to see that , you ’re not so far away from the 
truth as you might be. Collecting your wages is the 
good and the bad thing about life, I reckon. But every¬ 
thing ’s intended, so you don’t need to be too sorry 
for yourself, any way you look at it. And you could 
just as well have lost both legs while you were at it, 
you know.” She paused reflectively. “Let’s see: I’ve 
got chicken-broth and fresh rolls to-day—I ’ll send you 
over some, after awhile.” She nodded, and went back 
to her housework. 

Laurence went on to High School, Madame had her 
house to oversee, I had many overdue calls; so we left 
Pitache and John Flint together, out in the birdhaunted, 
sweet-scented, sun-dappled garden, in the golden morn¬ 
ing hours. No one can be quite heartless in a green 
garden, quite hopeless in the spring, or quite desolate 
when there’s a dog’s friendly nose to be thrust into one’s 
hand. 

I am afraid that at first he missed all this; for he 
could think of nothing but himself and that which had 
befallen him, coming upon him as a bolt from the blue. 
He had had, heretofore, nothing but his body—and now 
his body had betrayed him! It had become, not the 
splendid engine which obeyed his slightest wish, but a 
drag upon him. Realizing this acutely, untrained, un¬ 
disciplined, he was savagely sullen, impenetrably morose. 


46 


SLIPPY McGEE 


He tired of Laurence’s reading—I think the hoy’s free 
quickness of movement, his well-knit, handsome body, the 
fact that he could run and jump as pleased him, irked 
and chafed the man new and unused to his own physical 
infirmity. 

He seemed to want none of us; I have seen him sav¬ 
agely repulse the dog, who, shocked and outraged at this 
exhibition of depravity, withdrew, casting backward 
glances of horrified and indignant reproach. 

But as the lovely, peaceful, healing days passed, that 
bitter and contracted heart had to expand somewhat. 
Gradually the ferocity faded, leaving in its room an 
anxious and brooding wonder. God knows what 
thoughts passed through that somber mind in those long 
hours, when, concentrated upon himself, he must have 
faced the problem of his future and, like one before 
an impassable stone wall, had to fall back, baffled. He 
could be sure of only one thing: that never again could 
he be what he had been once—‘ ‘ the slickest cracksman in 
America. ’ ’ This in itself tortured him. Heretofore, life 
had been exactly what he chose to make it: he had put 
himself to the test, and he had proven himself the most 
daring, the coolest, shrewdest, most cunning, in that sin¬ 
ister world in which he had shone with so evil a light. 
He had been Slippy McGee. Sure of himself, his had 
been that curious inverted pride which is the stigmata 
of the criminal. 

More than once I saw him writhe in his chair, tor¬ 
mented, shaken, spent with futile curses, impotently 
lamenting his lost kingdom. He still had the skill, the 
cold calculating brain, the wit, the will; and now, by a 
cruel chance and a stupid accident, he had lost out! The 


NEIGHBORS 


47 


end had come for him, and he in his heyday! There 
were moments when, watching him, I had the sensation 
as of witnessing almost visibly, here in our calm sunny 
garden, the Dark Powers fighting openly for a soul. 

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but 
against principalities, against powers, against the rulers 
of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wicked¬ 
ness in high places.” 


CHAPTER IV 


UNDERWINGS 

I F I have not heretofore spoken of Mary Virginia, 
it is because all that winter she and Mrs. Eustis 
had been away; and in consequence Appleboro was 
dull enough. For the Eustises are our wealthiest and 
most important family, just as the Eustis house, with 
its pillared, Greek-temple-effect front, is by far the 
handsomest house in town. When we have important 
folks to entertain, we look to the Eustises to save our 
faces for us by putting them up at their house. 

One afternoon, shortly after we had gotten settled in 
Appleboro, I came home to find my mother entertaining 
no less a personage than Mrs. Eustis; she was n’t calling 
on the Catholic priest and his mother, you understand; 
far from it! She was recognizing Armand De Ranee 
and Adele de Marsignan! 

Mrs. Eustis was a fair, plump little partridge of a 
woman, so perfectly satisfied with herself that brains, 
in her case, would have amounted to a positive calamity. 
She is an instance of the fascination a fool seems to have 
for men of undoubted powers of mind and heart, for 
Eustis, who had both to an unusual degree, loved her 
devotedly, even while he smiled at her. She had, after 
some years of childlessness, laid him under an everlast¬ 
ing obligation by presenting him with a daughter, an 
48 


UNDERWINGS 49 

obligation deepened by the fact that the child was in 
every sense her father’s child, not her mother’s. 

That afternoon she brought the little girl with 
her, to make our acquaintance. When the child, shyly 
friendly, looked up, it seemed to me for an anguished 
moment as if another little girl had walked out of the 
past, so astonishingly like was she to that little lost play¬ 
mate of my youth. Right then and there Mary Virginia 
walked into my heart and took possession, as of a place 
swept and garnished and long waiting her coming. 

When we knew her better my mother used to say that 
if she could have chosen a little girl instead of the little 
boy that had been I, she must have chosen Mary Virginia 
Eustis out of all the world. 

Like Judge Mayne’s Laurence, she chose to make the 
Parish House her second home—for indeed my mother 
ever seemed to draw children to her, as by some delight¬ 
ful magic. Here, then, the child learned to sew and 
to embroider, to acquire beautiful housewifely accom¬ 
plishments, and to speak French with flawless perfection; 
she reaped the benefit of my mother’s girlhood spent in 
a convent in France; and Mrs. Eustis was far too shrewd 
not to appreciate the value of this. And so we acquired 
Mary Virginia. 

I watched the lovely miracle of her growth with an 
almost painful tenderness. Had I not become a priest, 
had I realized those spring hopes of mine; and had there 
been little children resembling their mother, then my 
own little girls had been like this one. Even thus had 
been their blue eyes, and theirs, too, such hair of such 
curling blackness. 

The hours I spent with the little girl and Laurence 


50 


SLIPPY McGEE 


helped me as well as them; these fresh souls and grow¬ 
ing minds freshened and revived mine, and kept me 
young in heart. 

“We are all made of dust,” said my mother once. 
“But Mary Virginia’s is star dust. Star dust, and dew, 
and morning gold,” she added musingly. 

“She simply cannot imagine evil, much less see it in 
anything or in anybody,” I told Madame, for at times 
the child’s sheer innocence troubled me for her. “One 
is puzzled how to bring home to this naive soul the 
ugly truth that all is not good. Now, Laurence is better 
balanced. He takes people and events with a saving 
grain of skepticism. But Mary Virginia is divinely 
blind.” 

My mother regarded me with a tolerant smile. “Do 
not worry too much over that divinely blind one, my 
son,” said she. “I assure you, she is quite capable of 
seeing a steeple in daylight! Observe this: yesterday 
Laurence angered her, and she seized him by the hair 
and bumped his head against the study wall—no mild 
thump, either! She has in her quite enough of the 
leaven of unrighteousness to save her, at a pinch—for 
Laurence was entirely right, she entirely wrong. Yet— 
she made him apologize before she consented to forgive 
him, and he did it gratefully. She allowed him to 
understand how magnanimous she was in thus pardoning 
him for her own naughtiness, and he was deeply im¬ 
pressed, as men-creatures should be under such circum¬ 
stances. Such wisdom, and she but a child! I was en¬ 
chanted ! ’ ’ 

“Good heavens! Surely, Mother, I misunderstand 
you! Surely you reproved her! ’ ’ 


UNDERWINGS 


51 


i 1 Reprove her ? 9 9 My mother’s voice was full of aston¬ 
ishment. 4 ‘Why should I reprove her? She was per¬ 
fectly right! ’ ’ 

“Perfectly right? Why, you said—indeed, I assure 
you, you said that Laurence had been entirely right, she 
entirely wrong!” 

“Oh, that! I see; well, as for that, she was.” 

“Then, surely—” 

“My son, a woman who is in the wrong is entirely 
right when she makes the man apologize,” said my 
mother firmly. “That is the Law, fixed as the Medes’ 
and the Persians’, and she who forgets or ignores it is 
ground between the upper and the nether millstones. 
Mary Virginia remembered and obeyed. When she 
grows up you will all of you adore her madly. Why, 
then, should she be reproved?” 

I have never been able to reflect upon Laurence get¬ 
ting his head bumped and then gratefully apologizing 
to the darling shrew who did it, without a cold wind 
stirring my hair. And yet—Laurence, and I, too, love 
her all the more dearly for it! Miserere, Domine! 

It was May when Mary Virginia came back to Apple- 
boro. She had written us a bubbling letter, telling us 
just when we were to expect her, and how happy she 
was at the thought of being home once more. We, too, 
rejoiced, for we had missed her sadly. My mother was 
so happy that she planned a little intimate feast to cele¬ 
brate the child’s return. 

I remember how calm and mild an evening it was. At 
noon there had been a refreshing shower, and the air 
was deliciously pure and clear, and full of wet woodsy 
scents. The raindrops fringing the bushes became 


52 


SLIPPY McGEE 


prisms, a spiderweb was a fairy foot-bridge; and all our 
birds, leaving for a moment such household torments as 
squalling insatiable mouths that must be filled, became 
jubilant choristers. “The opulent dyepots of the 
angels” had been emptied lavishly across the sky, and 
the old Parish House lay steeped in a serene and 
heavenly glow, every window glittering diamond-bright 
to the west. 

Next door Miss Sally Ruth was feeding and scolding 
her cooing pigeons, which fluttered about her, lighting 
upon her shoulder, surrounding her with a bright-colored 
living cloud; the judge’s black cat Panch lay along 
the Mayne side of the fence and blinked at them regret¬ 
fully with his slanting emerald eyes. From the Mayne 
kitchen-steps came, faintly, Daddy January’s sweet 
quavering old voice: 

“—Gvvine tuh climb up higher ’n’ higher, 

Some uh dese days—” 

John Flint, silent, depressed, with folded lips and 
somber eyes, hobbled about awkwardly, savagely training 
himself to use the crutches Westmoreland had lately 
brought him. Very unlovely he looked, dragging him¬ 
self along like a wounded beast. The poor wretch 
struck a discordant note in the sweet peacefulness of the 
spring evening; nor could we say anything to comfort 
him, we who were not maimed. 

Came a high, sweet, shrill call at the gate; a high 
yelp of delight from Pitache, hurtling himself forward 
like a woolly white cannonball; a sound of light and 
flying feet; and Mary Virginia ran into the garden, the 
little overjoyed dog leaping frantically about her. She 


UNDERWINGS 


53 


wore a white frock, and over it a light scarlet jacket. 
Her blue eyes were dancing, lighting her sweet and fresh 
face, colored like a rose. The gay little breeze that came 
along with her stirred her skirts, and fluttered her scarlet 
ribbons, and the curls about her temples. You might 
think Spring herself had paused for a lovely moment in 
the Parish House garden and stood before you in this 
gracious and virginal shape, at once delicate and vital. 

Miss Sally Ruth, scattering pigeons right and left, 
dashed to the fence to call greetings. My mother, seiz¬ 
ing the child by the arms, held her off a moment, to 
look her over fondly; then, drawing her closer, kissed 
her as a daughter is kissed. 

I laid my hand on the child’s head, happy with that 
painful happiness her presence always occasioned me, 
when she came back after an absence—as if the Other 
Girl flashed into view for a quick moment, and then 
was gone. Laurence, who had followed, stood looking 
down at her with boyish condescension. 

“Huh! I can eat hominy off her head!” said he, ag- 
gravatingly. 

“Old Mister Biggity!” flashed Mary Virginia. And 
then she turned and met, face to face, the fixed stare of 
John Flint, hanging upon his crutches as one might upon 
a cross,—a stare long, still, intent, curious, speculative, 
almost incredulous. 

“You are the Padre’s last guest, aren’t you?” her 
eyes were full of gravest sympathy. “ I’m so sorry you 
met with such a misfortune—but I’m gladder you ’re 
alive. It’s so good just to be alive in the spring, isn’t 
it?” She smiled at him directly, taking him, as it were, 
into a pleasant confidence. She seemed perfectly un- 


54 


SLIPPY McGEE 


conscious of tlie evil unloveliness of him; Mary Vir¬ 
ginia always seemed to miss the evil, passing it over as 
if it didn’t exist. Instead, diving into the depths of 
other personalities, always she brought to the surface 
whatever pearl of good might lie concealed at the bot¬ 
tom. To her this sinister cripple was simply another 
human being, with whose misfortune one must sympa¬ 
thize humanly. 

Clelie, in a speckless white apron and a brand-new 
red-and-white bandanna to do greater honor to the little 
girl whom she adored, set a table under the trees and 
spread it with the thin dainty sandwiches, the delectable 
little cakes, and the fine bonbons she and my mother had 
made to celebrate the child’s return. And we had tea, 
making very merry, for she had a thousand amusing 
things to tell us, every airy trifle informed with some¬ 
thing of her own brave bright mirthful spirit. John 
Flint sat nearby in the wheel chair, his crutches lying 
beside it, and looked on silently and ate his cake and 
drank his tea stolidly, as if it'were no unusual thing for 
him to break bread in such company. 

“Padre,” said Mary Virginia wfith deep gravity. 
“My aunt Jenny says I’m growing up. She says I ’ll 
have to put up my hair and let down my frocks pretty 
soon, and that I ’ll probably be thinking of beaux in 
another year, though she hopes to goodness I won’t, 
until I’ve got through with school at least, ’ ’ 

The almost unconscious imitation of Miss Jenny’s 
pecking, birdlike voice made me smile. 

“Beaux! Long skirts! Put up hair! Great Scott, 
will you listen to the kid!” scoffed Laurence. “You 
everlasting little silly, you! P ’tite Madame, these cakes 


UNDERWINGS 55 

are certainly all to the good. May I have another two 
or three, please ?” 

“I’m ’most thirteen years old, Laurence Mayne,” said 
Mary Virginia, with dignity. “You ’re only seventeen, 
so you don’t need to give yourself such hateful airs. 
You ’re not too old to be greedy, anyhow. Padre, am 
I growing up ? ” 

“I fear so, my child,” said I, gloomily. 

“You ’re not glad, either, are you, Padre?” 

“But you were such a delightful child,” I temporized. 

“Oh, lovely!” said Laurence, eying her with unflat¬ 
tering brotherliness. “And she had so much feeling, 
too, Mary Virginia! Why, when I was sick once, she 
wanted me to die, so she could ride to my funeral in the 
front carriage; she doted on funerals, the little ghoul 1 
She was horribly disappointed when I got better—she 
thought it disobliging of me, and that I’d done it to 
spite her. Once, too, when I tried to reason with her— 
and Mary Virginia needed reason if ever a kid did—she 
bumped my head until I had knots on it. There’s your 
delightful Mary Virginia for you!” 

“Anyhow, you didn’t die and become an angel—you 
stayed disagreeably alive and you ’re going to become 
a lawyer,” said Mary Virginia, too gently. “And your 
head was bumpable, Laurence, though I’m sorry to say 
I don’t ever expect to bump it again. Why, I’m going 
away to school and when I come back I ’ll be Miss Eus- 
tis, and you’ll be Mr. Mayne! Won’t it be funny, 
though ?’ ’ 

“I don’t see anything funny in calling you Miss 
Eustis,” said Laurence, with boyish impatience. “And 
I’m certainly not going to notice you if you ’re silly 


56 


SLIPPY McGEE 


enough to call me Mister Mayne. I hope you won’t be a 
fool, Mary Virginia. So many girls are fools/’ He 
ate another cake. 

“Not half as big fools as boys are, though/’ said she, 
dispassionately. “My father says the man is always the 
bigger fool of the two/’ 

Laurence snorted. “I wonder what we ’ll be like, 
though—both of us?” he mused. 

“You? You ’re biggity now, but you ’ll be lots worse, 
then,” said Mary Virginia, with unflattering frankness. 
11 1 think you ’ll probably strut like a turkey, and you ’ll 
be baldheaded, and wear double-lensed horn spectacles, 
and spats, and your wife will call you ‘Mr. Mayne’ to 
your face and ‘Your Poppa’ to the children, and she ’ll 
perfectly despise people like Madame and the Padre and 
me!” 

“You never did have any reasoning power, Mary Vir¬ 
ginia,” said Laurence, with brotherly tact. “Our 
black cat Panch would put it all over you. Allow me 
to inform you I ’in not biggity, miss! I’m logical— 
something a girl can’t understand. And I’d like to 
know what you think you ’ re going to grow up to be ? ” 

“Oh, let’s quit talking about it,” she said petulantly. 
“I hate to think of growing up. Grown ups don’t 
seem to be happy—and 1 want to be happy!” She 
turned her head, and met once more the absorbed and 
watchful stare of the man in the wheel-ehair. 

“Weren’t you sorry when you had to stop being a 
little boy and grow up ? ” she asked him, wistfully. 

“Me?” he laughed harshly. “I couldn’t say, miss. 
I guess I was born grown up.” His face darkened. 


UNDERWINGS 57 

‘ 1 That was n’t a bit fair,’’ said she, with instant sym¬ 
pathy. 

“There ’s a lot not fair,” he told her, “when you ’re 
born and brought up like I was. The worst is not so 
much what happens to you, though that’s pretty bad; 
it’s that you don’t know it’s happening—and there’s 
nobody to put you wise. Why,” his forehead puckered 
as if a thought new to him had struck him, “why, your 
very looks get to be different! ’ ’ 

Mary Virginia started. “Oh, looks!” said she, 
thoughtfully. “Now, isn’t it curious for you to say 
just that, right now, for it reminds me that I brought 
something to the Padre—something that set me to think¬ 
ing about people’s looks, too,—and how you never can 
tell. Wait a minute, and I ’ll show you.” She reached 
for the pretty crocheted bag she had brought with her, 
and drew from it a small pasteboard box. None of us, 
idly watching her, dreamed that a moment big with fate 
was upon us. I have often wondered how things would 
have turned out if Mary Virginia had lost or forgotten 
that pasteboard box! 

‘ ‘ I happened to put my hand on a tree—and this little 
fellow moved, and I caught him. I thought at first he 
was a part of the tree-trunk, he looked so much like it,” 
said the child, opening the little box. Inside lay nothing 
more unusual than a dark-colored and rather ugly gray 
moth, with his wings folded down. 

“One wouldn’t think him pretty, would one?” said 
she, looking down at the creature. 

“No,” said Flint, who had wheeled nearer, and craned 
his neck over the box. 11 No, miss, I should n’t think I’d 


58 


SLIPPY McGEE 


call something like that pretty,”—he looked from the 
moth to Mary Virginia, a bit disappointedly. 

Mary Virginia smiled, and picking up the little moth, 
held his body, very gently, between her finger-tips. He 
fluttered, spreading out his gray wings; and then one 
saw the beautiful pansy-like underwings, and the glorious 
lower pair of scarlet velvet barred and bordered with 
black. 

“I brought him along, thinking the Padre might like 
him, and tell me something about him,” said the little 
girl. “The Padre’s crazy about moths and butterflies, 
you must understand, and we ’re always on the lookout 
to get them for him. I never found this particular one 
before, and you can’t imagine how I felt when he showed 
me what he had hidden under that gray cloak of his! ’ ’ 

“He’s a member of a large and most respectable fam¬ 
ily, the Catocalae,” I told her. “I ’ll take him, my dear, 
and thank you—there’s always a demand for the Cato¬ 
calae. And you may call him an Underwing, if you pre¬ 
fer—that’s his common name.” 

“I got to thinking,” said the little girl, thoughtfully, 
lifting her clear and candid eyes to John Flint’s. “I 
got to thinking, when he threw aside his plain gray cloak 
and showed me his lovely underwings, that he’s like 
some people—people you’d think were very common, 
you know. You could n’t be expected to know what was 
underneath, could you? So you pass them by, thinking 
how ordinary, and matter of fact, and uninteresting and 
even ugly they are, and you feel rather sorry for them 
—because you don’t know. But if you can once get 
close enough to touch them—why, then you find out!” 
Her eyes grew deeper, and brighter, as they do when she 



UNDER WINGS 


59 


is moved; and the color came more vividly to her cheek. 
“Don't you reckon," said she naively, “that plenty of 
folks are like him ? They 're the sad color of the street- 
dust, of course, for things do borrow from their sur¬ 
roundings, didn’t you know that? That's called pro¬ 
tective mimicry, the Padre says. So you only think of 
the dust-colored outside—and all the while the under¬ 
wings are right there, waiting for you to find them! 
Isn’t it wonderful and beautiful? And the best of all 
is, it's true! ’' 

The cripple in the chair put out his hand with a hint 
of timidity in his manner; he was staring at Mary Vir¬ 
ginia as if some of the light within her had dimly pene¬ 
trated his grosser substance. 

“Could I hold it—for a minute—in my own hand?" 
he asked, turning brick-red. 

“Of course you may," said Mary Virginia pleasantly. 
“I see by the Padre's face this isn't a rare moth—he's 
been here all along, only my eyes have just been opened 
to him. I don't want him to go in any collection. I 
don't want him to go anywhere, except back into the air 
—I owe him that for what he taught me. So I'm sure 
the Padre won't mind, if you'd like to set him free, 
yourself. ’' 

She put the moth on the man’s finger, delicately, for 
a Catocala is a swift-winged little chap; it spread out 
its wings splendidly, as if to show him its loveliness; then, 
darting upward, vanished into the cool green depth of 
the shrubbery. 

“I remember running after a butterfly once, when I 
was a kid," said he. “He came flying down our street, 
Lord knows where from or why, and I caught him after 



60 


SLIPPY McGEE 


a chase. I thought he was the prettiest thing ever my 
eyes had seen, and I wanted the worst way in the world 
to keep him with me. A brown fellow he was, all 
sprinkled over with little splotches of silver, as if there ’d 
been plenty of the stuff on hand, and it’d been laid 
on him thick. But after awhile I got to thinking he’d 
feel like he was in jail, shut up in my hot fist. I 
couldn’t bear that, so I ran to the end of the street, to 
save him from the other kids, and then I turned him 
loose and w T atched him beat it for the sky. They ’re 
pretty things, butterflies. Somehow I always liked them 
better than any other living creatures. ’ ’ He was staring 
after the moth, his forehead wrinkled. He spoke almost 
unconsciously, and he certainly had no idea that he had 
given us cause for a hopeful astonishment. 

Now, Mary Virginia’s eyes had fallen, idly enough, 
upon John Flint’s hands lying loosely upon his knees. 
Her face brightened. 

1 ‘Padre,” she suggested suddenly, “why don’t you 
let him help you with your butterflies? Look at his 
hands! Why, they ’re just exactly the right sort to 
handle setting needles and mounting blocks, and to 
stretch wings without loosening a scale. He could be 
taught in a few lessons, and just think what a splendid 
help he could be! And you do so need help with those 
insects of yours, Padre—I’ve heard you say so, over and 
over.” 

The child was right—John Flint’did have good hands 
—large enough, well-shaped, steel-muscled, powerful, 
with flexible, smooth-skinned, sensitive fingers, the fin¬ 
gers of an expert lapidary rather than a prize-fighter. 

“If you think there’s any way I could help the par- 


UNDERWINGS 


61 


son for awhile, I’d be proud to try, miss. It ’s true,” 
he added casually, with a sphinx-like immobility of coun¬ 
tenance, ‘‘that I’m what might be called handy with my 
fingers. ’ ’ 

“We ’ll call it settled, then,” said Mary Virginia 
happily. 

Laurence took her home at dusk; it was a part of his 
daily life to look after Mary Virginia, as one looks after 
a cherished little sister. When they were younger the 
boy had often complained that she might as well be his 
sister, she quarreled with him so much; and the little 
girl said, bitterly, he was as disagreeable as if he’d been 
a brother. In spite of which the little girl, for all her 
delicious impertinences, looked up to the boy; and the 
boy had adored her, from the time she gurgled at him 
from her cradle. 

My mother left us, and John Flint and I sat outdoors 
in the pleasant twilight, he smoking the pipe Laurence 
had given him. 

“Parson,” said he, abruptly, “Parson, you folks are 
swells, ain’t you? The real thing, I mean, you and 
Madame ? Even the yellow nigger’s a lady nigger, ain’t 
she?” 

‘ ‘ I am a poor priest, such as you see, my son, Madame 
is—Madame. And Clelie is a good servant.” 

“But you were born a swell, weren’t you?” he per¬ 
sisted. “Old family, swell diggings, trained flunkies, 
and all that?” 

“I was born a gentleman, if that is what you mean. 
Of an old family, yes. And there was an old house— 
once.” 

“How’d you ever hit the trail for the Church? I 


62 


SLIPPY McGEE 


wonder! But say, you never asked me any more ques¬ 
tions than you had to, so you can tell me to shut up, if 
you want to. Not that I wouldn’t like to know how 
the Sam Hill the like of you ever got nabbed by the 
skypilots. ’ ’ 

“God called me through affliction, my son.” 

“Oh,” said my son, blankly. “Huh! But I bet you 
the best crib ever cracked you were some peach of a boy 
before you got that ‘ S. 0. S.’ ” 

“I was, like the young, the thoughtless young, a 
sinner. ’ ’ 

“I suppose,” said he tentatively, after a pause, “that 
I’m one hell of a sinner myself, according to Hoyle, 
ain’t I?” 

“I do not think it would injure you to change your— 
course of life, nor yet your way of mentioning it,” I 
6aid, feeling my way cautiously. “But—we are bidden 
to remember there is more joy in heaven over one sinner 
saved than over the ninety-and-nine just men.” 

“Is that so? Well, it listens like good horse-sense to 
me,” said Mr. Flint, promptly. “Because, look here: 
you can rake in ninety-and-nine boobs any old time— 
there’s one born every time the clock ticks, parson— 
but they don’t land something like me every day, be¬ 
lieve me! And I bet you a stack of dollar chips a mile 
high there was some song-and-dance in the sky-joint 
when they put one over on you for fair. Sure!” He 
puffed away at his pipe, and I, having nothing to say 
to this fine reasoning, held my peace. 

“Parson, that kid’s a swell, too, ain’t she? And the 
boy?” 

“Laurence is the son of Judge Hammond Mayne.” 


UNDERWINGS 


63 


“And the little girl?” Insensibly his voice softened. 

“I suppose,” I agreed, ‘ 4 that the little girl is what 
you might call a swell, too.” 

“I never,” said he, reflectively, “came what you 
might call talking close to real swells before. I 've seen 
'em, of course—at a distance. Some of 'em, taking 'em 
by and large, looked pretty punk, to me; some of ’em 
was middling, and a few looked as if they might have 
the goods. But none of 'em struck me as being real 
live breathing people , same as other folks. Why, par¬ 
son, some of those dames 'd throw a fit, fancying they 
was poisoned, if they had to breathe the same air with 
folks like me—me being what I am and they being—what 
they think they are. Yet here's you and Madame, the 
real thing—and the boy—and the little girl—the little 
girl—” he stopped, staring at me dumbly, as the vision 
of Mary Virginia rose before him. 

“She is, indeed, a dear, dear child,” said I. His 
words stung me somewhat, for once upon a time, I my¬ 
self would have resented that such as he should have 
breathed the same air with Mary Virginia. 

“I'd almost think I'd dreamed her,” said he, 
thoughtfully, “that is, if I was good enough to have 
dreams like that,” he added hastily, with his first touch 
of shame. “I 've seen ’em from the Battery up, and 
some of 'em was sure-enough queens, but I did n't know 
they came like this one. She's bran-new to me, parson. 
Say, you just show me what she wants me to help you 
with, and I '11 do it. She seems to think I can, and it 
oughtn’t to be any harder than opening a time-vault, 
ought it?” 

“No,” said I gravely, “I shouldn’t think it would 



64 


SLIPPY McGEE 


be. Though I never opened a time-vault, you under¬ 
stand, and I hope and pray you ’ll never touch one 
again, either. I ’d rather you wouldn’t even refer to 
it, please. It makes me feel, rather—well, let’s say 
particeps criminis. ’ ’ 

“I suppose that’s the polite for punching you in the 
wind,” said he, just as gravely. “And I didn’t think 
you’d ever monkeyed with a vault; why, you couldn’t, 
not if you was to try till Gabriel did his little turn in 
the morning—not unless you’d been caught when you 
were softer and put wise. Man, it’s a bigger job than 
you think, and you’ve got to have the know-how and 
the nerve before you can put it over. But there—I ’ll 
keep it dark, seeing you want me to.” He stretched 
out his hands, regarding them speculatively. “They 
are classy mitts,” he remarked impersonally. “Yep, 
seemed like they were just naturally made to—do what 
they did. They were built for fine work.” At that his 
jaw snapped; a spasm twitched his face; it darkened. 

“The work little Miss Eustis suggested for you,” I 
insinuated hastily, “is what very many people consider 
very fine work indeed. About one in a thousand can 
do it properly.” 

“Lead me to it,” said he wearily, and without enthusi¬ 
asm, “and turn me loose. I ’ll do what I can, to please 
her. At least, until I can make a getaway for keeps.” 


CHAPTER Y 


ENTER KERRY 

W HEN I was first seen prowling along the 
roads and about the fields stalking butter¬ 
flies and diurnal moths with the caution of 
a red Indian on the warpath and the stealth of a tiger 
in the jungle; when mystified folk met me at night, a 
lantern suspended from my neck, a haversack across my 
shoulders, a bottle-belt about my waist, and armed with 
a butterfly net, the consensus of opinion was that poor 
Father De Ranee was stark staring mad. Appleboro 
hadn’t heretofore witnessed the proceedings of the 
Brethren of the Net, and I had to do much patient ex¬ 
plaining; even then I am sure I must have left many 
firmly convinced that I was not, in their own phrase, 
“all there. ’ 9 

“Hey, you! Mister! Them worms is pizen! Them ’s 
fever- worms!” was shrieked at me frenziedly by the 
country-folks, black and white, when I was caught scoop¬ 
ing up the hairy caterpillars of the tiger moths. Even 
when it was understood that I wished caterpillars, 
cocoons, and chrysalids, for the butterflies and moths 
they would later make, looks of pitying contempt were 
cast upon me. That a grown man—particularly a min¬ 
ister of the gospel, with not only his own but other peo¬ 
ple’s souls to save—should spend time hunting for 

65 




66 SLIPPY McGEE 

worms, with which he could n’t even bait a hook, awak¬ 
ened amazement. 

“What any man in his right mind wants with a thing 
that ain’t nothin’ but wriggles an’ hair on the outside 
an ’ sqush on the inside, beats me! ’ ’ was said more than 
once. 

“But all of them are interesting, some are valuable, 
and many grow into very beautiful moths and butter¬ 
flies,” I ventured to defend myself. 

“S’posin’ they do? You can’t eat ’em or wear ’em 
or plant ’em, can you?” And really, you understand, 
I could n’t! 

“An’ you mean to tell me to my face,” said a scan¬ 
dalized farmer, watching me assorting and naming the 
specimens taken from my field box, “you mean to tell 
me you ’re givin’ every one o’ them bugs a name , same’s 
a baptized Christian? Adam named every livin’ thing, 
an’ Adam called them things Caterpillars an’ Butterflies. 
If it suited him an’ Eve and God A’mighty to have ’em 
called that an’ nothin’ else, looks to me it had oughter 
suit anybody that’s got a grain o’ real religion. If you 
go to call ’em anythin’ else it’s sinnin’ agin the Bible. 
I’ve heard all my life you Cath’lics don’t take as much 
stock in the Scripters as you’d oughter, but this thing 
o’ callin’ a wurrum Adam named plain Caterpillar a 
—a —what ’d you say the dum beast’s name was? My 
sufferin' Savior! is jest about the wust dern foolishness 
yet! I lay it at the Pope’s door, every mite o’ it, an’ 
you’d better believe he ’ll have to answer for sech car¬ 
rying on, some o’ these days!” 

So many other things having been laid at the Pope’s 
door, I held my peace and made no futile attempt to clear 


ENTER KERRY 


67 


the Holy Father of the dark suspicion of having per¬ 
petrated their names upon certain of the American 
lepidoptera. 

I had yet other darker madnesses; had I not been seen 
spreading upon trees with a whitewash brush a mixture 
of brown sugar, stale beer, and rum ? 

Asked to explain this lunatic proceeding I could only 
say that I was sugaring for moths; these airy fairy gen¬ 
tlemen having a very human liking for a “wee drappie 
o’t.” 

“That amiable failin’,” Major Appleby Cartwright 
decided, “is a credit to them an’ commends them to a 
respectful hearin’. On its face it would seem to admit 
them to the ancient an’ honorable brotherhood of con¬ 
vivial man. But, suh, there’s another side to this ques¬ 
tion, an' it ’s this:—a CTeature that’s got six perfectly 
good legs, not to mention wings, an’ still can’t carry his 
liquor without bein’ caught, deserves his fate. It’s not 
in my line to offer suggestions to an allwise Providence, 
or I might hint that a scoop-net an’ a killing jar in pickle 
for some two-legged topers out huntin’ free drinks 
would n’t be such a bad idea at all. ’ ’ 

But as I pursued my buggy way—and displayed, save 
in this one particular, what might truthfully be called 
ordinary common sense—people gradually grew accus¬ 
tomed to it, looking upon me as a mild and harmless 
lunatic whose inoffensive mania might safely be indulged 
—nay, even humored. In consequence I was from time 
to time inundated with every common thing that creeps, 
crawls, and flies. I accepted gifts of bugs and cater¬ 
pillars that filled my mother with disgust and Clelie with 
horror; both of them hesitated to come into my study, 


68 


SLIPPY McGEE 


and I have known Clelie to be afraid to go to bed of a 
night because the great red-horned ‘ 1 Hickory devil ’ ’ was 
downstairs in a box, and she was firmly convinced that 
this innocent worm harbored a cold-blooded desire to 
crawl upstairs and bite her. That silly woman will de¬ 
part this life in the firm faith that all crawling creatures 
came into the world with the single-hearted hope of 
biting her, above all other mortals; and that having 
achieved the end for which they were created, both they 
and she will immediately curl up and die. 

But alas, I had but scant time to devote to this en¬ 
chanting and engrossing study, which, properly pursued, 
will fill a man’s days to the brim. I gathered my spec¬ 
imens as I could and classified and mounted them as it 
pleased God—until the advent of John Flint. 

Now, I must, with great reluctance, here set down the 
plain truth that he, too, looked upon me at first with 
amaze not unmixed with rage and contempt. Most 
caterpillars, you understand, feed upon food of their 
own arbitrary choosing; and when they are in captivity 
one must procure this particular aliment if one hopes 
to rear them. 

Slippy McGee feeding bugs! It was about as 
hideous and devil-born a contretemps as, say, putting a 
belted earl to peel potatoes or asking an archbishop to 
clean cuspidors. The man boiled with offended dignity 
and outraged pride. One could actually see him swell. 
He had expected something quite different, and this ap¬ 
parently offensive triviality disgusted and shocked him. 
I could see myself falling forty thousand fathoms in his 
esteem, and I think he would have incontinently turned 
his back upon me save for his promise to Mary Virginia. 


ENTER KERRY 


69 


It is true that many of the caterpillars are ugly and 
formidable, poor things, to the uninitiated eye, which 
fails to recognize under this uncomely disguise the 
crowned and glorious citizens of the air. I had just then 
a great Cecropia, an able-bodied green gentleman armed 
with twelve thorn-like, sizable horns, and wearing, along 
with other agreeable adornments, three yellow and four 
red arrangements like growths of dwarf cactus plants 
on the segments behind his hard round green head. 

Mr. Flint, with an ejaculation of horror, backed off on 
one crutch and clubbed the other. 

“My God!” said he, “Kill it! Kill it!” I saved 
my green friend in the nick of time. The man, with 
staring eyes, looked from me to the caterpillar; then 
he leaned over and watched it, in grim silence. 

He knotted his forehead, made slits of his eyes, gulped, 
screwed his mouth into the thin red line of deadly de¬ 
termination, and with every nerve braced, even as a 
martyr braces himself for the stake or the sword, put 
out his hand, up which the formidable-looking worm 
walked leisurely. Death not immediately resulting from 
this daring act, he controlled his shudders and breathed 
easier. The worm became less and less terrifying; no 
longer appearing, say, the size of the boa constrictor. 
A few moments of this harmless meandering about Mr. 
Flint’s hand and arm, and of a sudden he wore his true 
colors of an inoffensive and law-abiding larva, anxious 
only to attend strictly to his own legitimate business, 
the Gargantuan feeding of himself into the pupa from 
which he would presently emerge one of the most mag¬ 
nificent of native moths. Gingerly Mr. Flint picked him 
up between thumb and fore-finger, and as gingerly 


70 


SLIPPY McGEE 


dropped him back into the breeding-cage. He squared 
his shoulders, wiped his brow, and drew a long whistling 
breath. 

“Phe-ew! It took all my nerve to do it!” said he, 
frankly. “I felt for a minute as if a strong-arm cop’d 
chased me up an alley and pulled his gun on me. The 
feeling of a bug’s legs on your bare skin is something 
fierce at first, ain’t it? But after him none of ’em can 
scare me any more. I could play tag with pink monkeys 
with blue tails and green whiskers without sending in 
the hurry-call.” 

The setting boards and blocks, the arrays of pins, 
needles, tubes, forceps, jars and bottles, magnifying- 
glasses, microscope, slides, drying-ovens, relaxing-box, 
cabinets, and above all, the mounted specimens, raised 
his spirits somewhat. This, at least, looked workman¬ 
like; this, at least, promised something better than stok¬ 
ing worms! 

If not hopefully, at least willingly enough, he allowed 
himself to be set to work. And that work had come in 
what some like to call the psychological moment. At 
least it came—or was sent—just when he needed it 
most. 

He soon discovered, as all beginners must, that there 
is very much more to it than one might think; That here, 
too, one must pay for exact knowledge with painstaking 
care and patient study and ceaseless effort. He discov¬ 
ered how fatally easy it is to spoil a good specimen; how 
fairy-fragile a wee wing is; how painted scales rub, and 
vanish into thin air; how delicate antennae break, and 
forelegs will fiendishly depart hence; and that proper 
mounting, which results in a perfect insect, is a task 


ENTER KERRY 


71 


which requires practice, a sure eye, and an expert, 
delicate, and dexterous touch. Also, that one must 
he ceaselessly on guard lest the baleful little ant and 
other tiny curses evade one’s vigilance and render void 
one’s best work. He learned these and other salutary 
lessons, which tend to tone down an amateur’s conceit 
of his half-knowledge; and this chastened him. He felt 
his pride at stake—he who could so expertly, with almost 
demoniac ingenuity, force the costliest and most cun¬ 
ningly constructed burglar-proof lock; he whose not idle 
boast was that he was handy with his fingers! Slippy 
McGee baffled, at bay before a butterfly? And in the 
presence of a mere priest and a girl-child? Never! 
He’d show us what he could do when he really tried 
to try! 

Presently he wanted to classify; and he wanted to do 
it alone and unaided—it looked easy enough. It irked 
him, pricked his pride, to have to be always asking some¬ 
body else “what is this?” And right then and there 
those inevitable difficulties that confront every earnest 
and conscientious seeker at the beginning of his quest, 
arose, as the fascinating living puzzles presented them¬ 
selves for his solving. 

To classify correctly is not something one learns in a 
day, be he never so willing and eager; as one may dis¬ 
cover who cares to take half a dozen plain, obscurely- 
colored small moths, and attempts to put them in their 
proper places. 

Mr. Flint tried it—and those wretched creatures 
wouldn’t stay put. It seemed to him that every time 
he looked at them they ought to be somewhere else; 
always there was something—a bar, a stripe, a small dis- 


72 


SLIPPY McGEE 


tinctive spot, a wing of peculiar shape, antennae, or 
palpi, or spur, to differentiate them. 

“Where the Sam Hill,” he blazed, “do all these footy 
little devils come from, anyhow? Where am I to put 
a beast of a bug when the next one that’s exactly like 
it is entirely different the next time you look at it? 
There’s too much beginning and no end at all to this 
game! ’ ’ 

For all that, he followed them up. I saw with pure 
joy that he refused to dismiss anything carelessly, while 
he scorned to split hairs. He had a regular course of 
procedure when he was puzzled. First he turned the 
new inseet over and over and glared at it from every 
possible angle; then he rumpled his hair, gritted his 
teeth, squared his shoulders and hurled himself into 
work. 

There was, for instance, the common Dione Yanillae, 
that splendid Gulf Fritillary which haunts all the 
highways of the South. She’s a long-wing, but she ? s 
not a Heliconian; she’s a silver-spot, but she’s not an 
Argynnis. She bears a striking family likeness to her 
fine relations, but she has certain structural peculiarities 
which differentiate her. Whose word should he take for 
this, and why? Wherein lay those differences? He 
began, patiently, with her cylinder-shaped yellow-brown, 
orange-spotted caterpillar, on the purple passion flowers 
in our garden ; he watched it change into a dark-brown 
chrysalis marked with a few pale spots; he saw emerge 
from this the red-robed lady herself, with her long ful¬ 
vous forewings, and her shorter hind wings smocked 
with black velvet, and her under-frock flushed with pink¬ 
ish orange and spangled with silver. And yet, in spite 


ENTER KERRY 


73 


of her long marvelous tongue—he was beginning to find 
out that no tool he had ever seen, and but few that God 
Himself makes, is so wonderful as a butterfly’s tongue— 
she had n’t been able to tell him that about herself which 
he most wished to find out. That called for a deeper 
knowledge than he as yet possessed. 

But he knew that other men knew. And he had to 
know. He meant to know. For the work gripped him 
as it does those marked and foreordained for its service. 
That marvelous world in which the Little People dwell 
—a world so absolutely different from ours that it might 
well be upon another planet—began to open, slowly, 
slowly, one of its many mysterious doors, allowing him 
just glimpse enough of what magic lay beyond to fire 
his heart and to whet his appetite. And he couldn’t 
break into that world with a jimmy. It was burglar- 
proof. That portal w T as so impervious to even the facile 
fingers of Slippy McGee, that John Flint must pay the 
inevitable and appropriate toll to enter! 

Westmoreland had replaced his crutches with a 
wooden leg, and you might see him stumping about our 
grounds, minutely examining the underside of shrubs 
and bushes, the bark of trees, poking into corners and 
crannies, or scraping in the mold under the fallen leaves 
by the fences, for things which no longer filled him with 
aversion and disgust, but with the student’s interest and 
pleasure. 

“ Think of me being in the same world with ’em all 
these years and not knowing a thing about ’em when 
there’s so much to know, and under my skin stark 
crazy to learn it, only I didn’t know I even wanted to 
know what I really want to know more than anything 


74 


SLIPPY McGEE 


else, until I had to get dumped down here to find it out! 

I get the funniest sort of a feeling, parson, that all along 
there’s been a Me tucked away inside my hide that’s 
been loving these things ever since I was born. Not 
just to catch and handle ’em, and stretch out their little 
wings, and remember the names some bughouse high¬ 
brow wished on ’em, though all that’s in the feeling, 
too; it’s something else, if I could make you understand 
what I mean.” 

I laughed. “I think I do understand,” said I. “I 
have a Me like that tucked away in mine, too, you know.” 

He looked at me gravely. “Parson,” said he, ear¬ 
nestly, “there’s times I wish you had a dozen kids, and 
every one of ’em twins! It’s a shame to think of some 
poor orphans swindled out of such a daddy as you’d 
have made!” 

“Why,” said I, smiling, “You are one of my twins.” 

“Me?” He reflected. “Maybe half of me might be, 
parson,” he agreed, “but it’s not safe for a skypilot 
to be caught owning a twin like the other half. ’ ’ 

“I’m pinning my faith to my half,” said I, serenely. 

“Now, why?” he asked, with sudden fierceness. “I * 
turn it over and over and over: it looks white on the out¬ 
side, but I can’t to save me figure out why you ’re doing 
it. Parson, what have you got up your sleeve?” 

“Nothing but my arm. What should you think?” 

“I don’t know what to think, and that’s the straight 
of it. What’s your game, anyhow ? What in the name 
of God are you after?” 

“Why, I think,” said I, “that in the name of God I’m 
after—that other You that’s been tucked away all these 
years, and could n’t get born until a Me inside mine, just 


ENTER KERRY 


75 


like himself, called him to come out and be alive.*’ 

He pondered this in silence. Then: 

“I ’ll take your word for it,” said he. “Though if 
anybody’d ever told me I’d be eating out of a parson’s 
hand, I’d have pushed his face in for him. Yep, I’m 
Fido! Me!” 

“At least you growl enough,” said I, tartly. 

He eyed me askance. 

‘ ‘ Have I got to lick hands ? ” he snarled. 

I walked away, without a reply; through my shoulder- 
blades I could feel him glaring after me. He followed, 
hobbling: 

“Parson!” 

“Well?” 

“ If I’m not the sort that licks hands I’m not the sort 
that bites ’em, neither. I 11 tell you—it’s this way: 
I—sort of get to chewing on that infernal log of wood 
that’s where my good leg used to grow and—and 
splinters get into my temper—and I’ve got to snarl or 
burst wide open! You’d growl like the devil yourself, 
if you had to try holding down my job for awhile, sky- 
pilot or no skypilot!” 

* “Why—I dare say I should,” said I, contritely. 
“But,” I added, after a pause, “I shouldn’t be any the 
better for it, should you think?” 

“Not so you could notice,” shortly. And after a 
moment he added, in an altered voice: “Rule 1: Can 
the Squeal!” 

I think he most honestly tried to. It was no easy task, 
and I have seen the sweat start upon his forehead 
and his face go pale, when in his eagerness he for¬ 
got for a moment the cruel fact that he could no longer 


76 


SLIPPY McGEE 


move as lightly as of old—and the crippled body, be¬ 
traying him, reminded him all too swiftly of his mistake. 

The work saved him. For it is the heaven-sent sort of 
work, to those ordained for it, that fills one’s hours and 
leaves one eager for further tasks. It called for all his 
oldtime ingenuity. His tools, for instance—at times 
their , limitations irked him, and he made others more 
satisfactory to himself; tools adjusted to an insect’s frail 
body, not to a time-lock. Before that summer ended he 
could handle even the frailest and tiniest specimen with 
such nice care that it was delightful to watch him at 
work. The time was to come when he could mend a tom 
wing or fix a broken antennae with such exquisite fidelity 
to detail that even the most expert eye might well be 
deceived. 

I had only looked for a little temporary help, such as 
any intelligent amateur might be able to furnish. But 
I was not long unaware that this was more than a mere 
amateur. To quote himself, he had the goods, and I 
realized with a mounting heart that I had made a find, 
if I could only hold on to it. For the first time in years 
I could exchange specimens. My cabinets began to fill 
out—with such perfect insects, too! We added several 
rare ones, a circumstance to make any entomologist look 
upon the world through rosy spectacles. Why, even the 
scarce shy Cossus Centerensis came to our very doors, ap¬ 
parently to fill a space awaiting him. Perhaps he was 
a Buddhist insect undergoing reincarnation, and was 
anxious to acquire merit by self-immolation. Anyhow, 
we acquired him, and I hope he acquired merit. 

We had scores of insects in the drying ovens. We had 
more and ever more in the breeding cages,—in our case 


ENTER KERRY 


77 


simple home-made affairs of a keg or a box with a fine 
wire-netting over the food plant; or a lamp-chimney 
slipped over a potted plant with a bit of mosquito-net¬ 
ting tied over the top, for the smaller forms. 

These cages were a never-failing source of delight and 
interest to the children, and at their hands heaven rained 
caterpillars upon us that season. Even my mother grew 
interested in the work, though Clelie never ceased to look 
upon it as a horrid madness peculiar to white people. 

“All Buckrahs is funny in dey haids,” Daddy Jan¬ 
uary consoled her when she complained to him about it. 
“Dey gets all kind o’ fool notions ’bout all kind o’ fool 
t’ings. You ain’t got to feel so bad—de Jedge is lots 
wuss’n yo’ boss is. Yo’ boss kin see de bugs he run 
atter, but my boss talk ’bout some kind o’ bug he call 
Germ. I ax um what kind o’ bug is dat; an’ he ’low 
you can’t see um wid yo’ eye. I ain’t say so to de 
Jedge, but 1 ’low when you see bug you can’t see wid 
yo’ eye, you best not seem um ’tall—case he must be 
some kind o’ spook, an’ Gawd knows I ain’t want to see 
no spook. Ef de bug ain’t no spook, den he mus’ be 
eenside yo’ haid, ’stead o’ outside um, an’ to hab bug 
on de eenside o’ yo’ haid is de wuss kind o’ bad luck. 
Anyhow, nobody but Buckrah talk an’ ack like dat, nig¬ 
gers is got mo ’ sense. ’ ’ 

We found, presently, a ready and a steady sale for our 
extra stock. We could supply caterpillars, butterflies 
and moths, or chrysalids and cocoons; we had some rather 
scarce ones; and then, our unmounted specimens were 
so perfect, and cur mounted ones so exquisitely done, 
that we had but little trouble in disposing of them. 
Under the hand of John Flint these last were really 


78 


SLIPPY McGEE 


works of art. Not for nothing had he boasted that he 
was handy with his fingers. 

The pretty common forms, framed hovering lifelike 
over delicately pressed ferns and flowers, found even a 
readier market, for they were really beautiful. Money 
had begun to come in—not largely, it is true, but still 
steadily and surely. You must know how to handle your 
stock, and you must be in touch with your market— 
scientists, students, collectors,—and this, of course, takes 
time. We could supply the larger dealers, too, although 
they pay less, and we had a modest advertisement in one 
or two papers published for the profession, which 
brought us orders. But let no one imagine that it is an 
easy task to handle these frail bodies, these gossamer 
wings, so that naturalists and collectors are glad to get 
them. Once or twice we lost valuable shipments. 

Long since—in the late spring, to be exact, John Flint 
had moved out of the Guest Room, needed for other oc¬ 
cupants, into a two-roomed outbuilding across the gar¬ 
den. Some former pastor had had it built for an oratory 
and retreat, but now, covered with vines, it had stood 
for many years unused, save as a sort of lumber room. 

When the troublesome question of where we might 
properly house him had arisen, my mother hit upon these 
unused rooms as by direct inspiration. She had them 
cleaned, repainted, scoured, and turned into a pleasant 
well-lighted, airy workroom and living-room combined, 
and a smaller and rather austere bedroom, with an in¬ 
expensive but very good head of Christ over the mantel, 
and an old, old carved crucifix on the wall beside the 
white iron bed. Laurence took from his own room a 
Morris chair, whose somewhat frayed cushions my 


ENTER KERRY 


79 


mother neatly re-covered. Mary Virginia contributed a 
rug, as well as dressing-gown and ♦ slippers. Miss Sally 
Ruth gave him outright a brand-new Bible, and loaned 
him an old cedar-wood wardrobe which had been her 
great-grandmother’s, and which still smelt delicately of 
generations of rose-leaved and lavendered linen. 

“All I ask,” said Miss Sally Ruth sharply, “is that 
you ’ll read Paul with your eyes open and your mouth 
shut, and that you ’ll keep your clothes in that wardrobe 
and your moths out of it. If it was intended for any¬ 
body to teach you anything, then Paul will teach you; but 
it wasn’t intended for a cedar-wood wardrobe to hold 
moths, and I hope you won’t forget it!” 

Major Cartwright sent over a fishing-rod, a large jar 
of tobacco, and a framed picture of General Lee. 

“Because no man, suh, could live under the same roof 
with even his pictured semblance, and not be the bettah 
fo’ it,” said the major earnestly. “I know. I’ve got 
to live with him myself. When I’m fair to middlin’ 
he’s in the dinin’ room. When I’ve skidded off the 
straight an’ narrow path I lock him up in the parlor, 
an’ at such times I sleep out on the po’ch. But when 
I’m at peace with man an’ God I take him into my bed¬ 
room an’ look at him befo’ retirin’. He’s about as easy 
to live with as the Angel Gabriel, but he’s mighty 
bracin’, Marse Robert is: mighty bracin’!” 

Thus equipped, John Flint settled himself in his own 
house. It had been a wise move, for he had the sense 
of proprietorship, privacy, and freedom. He could come 
and go as he pleased, with no one to question. He could 
work undisturbed, save for the children who brought him 
such things as they could find. He put his breeding 


80 


SLIPPY McGEE 


cages out on the vine-covered piazzas surrounding two 
sides of his house, arranged the cabinets and boxes which 
had been removed from my study to his own, nailed up 
a few shelves to suit himself, and set up housekeeping. 

My mother had been frankly delighted to have my 
creeping friends moved out of the Parish House, and 
Clelie abated in her dislike of the one-legged man be¬ 
cause he had, in a w T ay, removed from her a heretofore 
never-absent fear of waking up some night and finding 
a caterpillar under her bed. More yet, he entailed no 
extra work, for he flatly refused to have her set foot in 
his rooms for the purpose of cleaning them. lie attended 
to that himself. The man was a marvel of neatness and 
order. Mesdames, permit me to here remark that when 
a man is neat and orderly no woman of Eve ’s daughters 
can compare with him. John Flint’s rooms would arouse 
the rabid envy of the cleanest and most scourful she in 
Holland itself. 

Now as the months wore away there had sprung up 
between him, and Mary Virginia and Laurence, one of 
those odd comradely friendships which sometime unite 
the totally unlike with bonds hard to break. His spot¬ 
less workroom had a fascination for the youngsters. 
They were always in and out, now with a cocoon, now 
an imago, now a larva, and then again to see how those 
they had already brought were getting along. 

The lame man was an unrivaled listener—a circum¬ 
stance which endeared him to youthful Laurence, in 
whom thoughts and the urge to express these thoughts in 
words rose like sap. This fresh and untainted confi¬ 
dence, poured out so naively, taught John Flint more 
than any words or prayers of mine could have done. It 


ENTER KERRY 


81 


opened to him a world into which his eyes had not here¬ 
tofore been permitted to look; and the result was all 
the more sure and certain, in that the children had no 
faintest idea of the effect they were producing. They 
had no end to gain, no ax to grind; they merely spoke 
the truth as they knew it, and this unselfish and hopeful 
truthfulness aroused his interest and curiosity; it even 
compelled his admiration. He couldn’t dismiss this as 
‘‘hot air”! 

I was more than glad to have him thus taught. It 
was a salutary lesson, tending to temper his overweening 
confidence and to humble his contemptuous pride. In 
his own world he had been supreme, a figure of sinister 
importance. Brash had been crook or cop who had 
taught or caught Slippy McGee! But in this new at¬ 
mosphere, in which he breathed with difficulty, the young 
had been given him for guides. They led him, where 
a grownup had failed. 

Mary Virginia was particularly fond of him. He had 
as little to say to her as to Laurence, but he looked at 
her with interested eyes that never lost a movement; 
she knew he never missed a word, either; his silence was 
friendly, and the little girl had a pleasant fashion of 
taking folk for granted. Hers was one of those large 
natures which give lavishly, shares itself freely, but does 
not demand much in return. She gave with an open 
hand to her quiet listener—her books, her music, her 
amusing and innocent views, her frank comments, her 
truthfulness, her sweet brave gaiety; and he absorbed 
it like a sponge. It delighted her to find and bring the 
proper food-plants for his cages. And she being jne of 
those who sing while they work, you might hoar her 


82 


SLIPPY McGEE 


caroling like a lark, flitting about the old garden with 
her red setter Kerry at her heels. 

Laurence no longer read aloud to him, but instead gave 
Flint such books as he could find covering his particular 
study, and these were devoured and pored over, and 
more begged for. Flint would go without new clothes, 
neat as he was, and without tobacco, much as he liked 
to smoke,—to buy books upon lepidoptera. 

He helped my mother with her flowers and her vege¬ 
tables, but refused to have anything to do with her 
chickens, remarking shortly that hens were such fools 
he couldn’t help hating them. Madame said she liked 
to have him around, for he was more like some unob¬ 
trusive jinnee than a mere mortal. She declared that 
John Flint had what the negroes call a “growing hand” 
—he had only to stick a bit of green in the ground and 
it grew like Jonah’s gourd. 

Since he had begun to hobble about, he had gradually 
come to be accepted by the town in general. They looked 
upon him as one who shared Father De Ranee’s madness, 
a tramp who was a hunter of bugs. It explained his 
presence in the Parish House; I fancy it also explained 
to some why he had been a tramp! 

Folks got used to him, as one does to anything one 
sees daily. The pleasant conservative soft-voiced ladies 
who liked to call on Madame of an afternoon and gossip 
Christianly, and drink tea and eat Clelie’s little cakes 
on our broad shady verandah, only glanced casually at 
the bent head and shoulders visible through the screened 
window across the garden. They said he was very in¬ 
teresting, of course, but painfully shy and bashful. As 
for him he was as horribly afraid of them as they would 



ENTER KERRY 


83 

have been of him, had they known. I could not always 
save myself from the sin of smiling at an ironic situation. 

Judge Mayne had at first eyed the man askance, watch¬ 
ing him as his own cats might an interloping stray dog. 

“The fellow’s not very prepossessing,’’ he told me, of 
an evening when he had dined with us, “but I ’ve been 
on the bench long enough to be skeptical of any fixed 
good or bad type—I ’ve found that the criminal type is 
any type that goes wrong; so I shouldn’t go so far as 
to call this chap a bad egg. But—I hope you are reason¬ 
ably sure of him, father?” 

“Reasonably,” said I, composedly. 

“Laurence tells me Madame and Mary Virginia like 
the fellow. H’m! Well, I’ve acquired a little faith 
in the intuition of women—some women, understand, and 
some times. And mark you, I didn’t say judgment. 
Let us hope that this is one of the times when faith in 
intuition will be justified.” 

Later, when he had had time to examine the work 
progressing under the flexible fingers of the silent work¬ 
man, he withdrew with more respect. 

“I suppose he’s all right, if you think so, father. 
But I’d watch out for him, anyway,” he advised. 

“That is exactly what I intend to do.” 

“Rather he fell into your hands than mine. Better 
for him,” said the judge, briefly. Then he launched 
into an intimate talk of Laurence, and in thus talking of 
the boy’s future, forgot my helper. 

That was it, exactly. The man was so unobtrusive 
without in the least being furtive. Had so little to say; 
attended so strictly to his own business, and showed him¬ 
self so utterly and almost inhumanly uninterested in 


84 


SLIPPY McGEE 


anybody else’s, that he kept in the background. He 
was there, and people knew it; they were, in a sense, 
interested in him, but not curious about him. 

One morning in early autumn—he had been with us 
then some eight or nine months—I went over to his rooms 
with a New York newspaper in my hand. It had news 
that set my heart to pounding sickeningly—news that 
at once simplified and yet complicated matters. I hesi¬ 
tated as to whether or not I should tell him, but decided 
that whatever effect that news might produce, I would 
deal with him openly, above board, and always with 
truth. He must act and judge for himself and with his 
eyes open. On my part there should be no concealment. 

The paper stated that the body of a man found float¬ 
ing in the East River had been positively identified by 
the police as that of Slippy McGee. That the noted 
crook had gotten back into New York through the cun¬ 
ning dragnet so carefully spread for him was another 
proof of his daring and dexterity. How he met the dark 
fate which set him adrift, battered and dreadful, in the 
East River, was another of those underworld crimes 
that remain unsolved. Cunning and dangerous, mys¬ 
terious in his life, baffling all efforts to get at him, he 
was as evilly mysterious in his death. There was only 
one thing sure—that this dead wretch with the marks 
of violence upon him was Slippy McGee; and since his 
breath had ceased, the authorities could breathe easier. 

He read it deliberately; then re-read it, and sat and 
stared at the paper. A slow grim smile came to his lips, 
and he took his chin in his hand, musingly. The eyes 
narrowed, the face darkened, the jaw thrust itself for¬ 
ward. 


ENTER KERRY 


85 


“Dead, huh?” he grunted, and stared about him, with 
a slow, twisting movement of the head. “Well—I might 
just as well be, as buried alive in a jay-dump at the tail- 
end of all creation!” Once again the Powers of Dark¬ 
ness swooped down and wrestled with and for him; and 
knowing what I knew, sick at heart, I trembled for him. 

“What am 1 doing here, anyhow?” he snarled with 
his lips drawn back from his teeth. “Piddling with 
bugs— Me! Patching up their dinky little wings and 
stretching out their dam’ little legs and feelers—me being 
what I am, and they being what they are! Say, I’ve got 
to quit this, once for all I Ve got to quit it. I’m not a 
man any more. I’m a dead one, a he-granny cutting 
silo for lady-worms and drynursing their interesting lit¬ 
tle babies. My God! Me!” And he threw his hands 
above his head with a gesture of rage and despair. 

“Hanging on here like a boob—no wonder they think 
I’m dead! If I could just make a getaway and pull off 
one more good job and land enough—” 

“You couldn’t keep it, if you did land it—your sort 
can’t. You know how it went before—the women and 
the sharks got it. There’d be always that same in¬ 
centive to pull off just one more to keep you going—until 
you’d pulled yourself behind bars, and stayed there. 
And there’s the drug-danger, too. If you escaped so 
far, it was because so far you had the strength to let 
drugs alone. But the drugs get you, sooner or later, do 
they not? Have you not told me over and over again 
that ‘nearly all dips are dopes’? That first the dope 
gets you—and then the law? No. You can’t pull off 
anything that won’t pull you into hell. We have gone 
over this thing often enough, haven’t we?” 


86 


SLIPPY McGEE 


“No, we haven’t. And I haven’t had a chance to 
pnll off anything—except leaves for bugs. Me! I want 
to get my hand in once more, I tell you! I want to pull 
off a stunt that ’ll make the whole bunch of bulls sit up 
and bellow for fair—and I can do it, easy as easy. Think 
I’ve croaked, do they? And they can all snooze on 
their peg-posts, now I’m a stiff? "Well, by cripes, I 
just want half of a half of a chance, and I ’ll show ’em 
Slippy McGee’s good and plenty alive! ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Come out into the garden, my son, and feel that you 
are good and plenty alive. Come out into the free air. 
Hold on tight, a little while longer!” 

I laid my hand upon his shoulder compellingly, and 
although he glared at me, and ground his teeth, and 
lifted his lip, he came; unwillingly, swearing under his 
breath, he came. We tramped up and down the garden 
paths, up and down, and back again, his wooden peg 
making a round hole, like a hoofmark, in the earth. He 
stared down at it, spat savagely upon it, and swore hor¬ 
ribly, but not too loudly. 

“I want to feel like a live man!” he gritted. “A live 
man, not a one-legged mucker with a beard like a Dutch 
bomb-thrower’s, puttering about a skypilot’s backyard 
on the wrong side of everything! ’ ’ 

“Stick it out a little longer, John Flint; hold fast!” 

“Hold fast to what?” he demanded savagely. “To 
a bug stuck on a needle ? ’ ’ 

“Yes. And to me who trusts you. To Madame who 
likes you. To the dear child who put bug and needle 
into your hand because she knew it was good work and 
trusted your hand to do it. And more than all, to that 


ENTER KERRY 87 

other Me you 're finding—your own true self, John 
Flint! Hold fast, hold fast!" 

He stopped and stared at me. 

“ I'm believing him again ! 9 9 said he, grievously. 
“I’ve been sat on while I was hot, and my number's 
marked on me, 23. I'm hoodooed, that's what!" 

Tramp, tramp, stump, stump, up and down, the two 
of us. 

“All right, devil-dodger," said he wearily, after a long 
sullen silence. “I 11 stick it out a bit longer, to please 
you. You've been white—the lot of you. But look 
here—if I beat it some night . . . with what I can find, 
why, I'm warning you: don't blame me —you 're run¬ 
ning your risks, and it ’ll be up to you to explain! ’' 

“When you want to go, John Flint—when you really 
and truly want to go, why, take anything I have that 
you may fancy, my son. I give it you beforehand." 

‘ ‘ I don't want anything given to me beforehand!" he 
growled. “I want to take what I want to take without 
anybody's leave!" 

“Very well, then; take what you want to take, with¬ 
out anybody's leave! I shall be able to do without it, 
I dare say." 

He turned upon me furiously: 

“Oh, yes, I guess you can! You'd do without eating 
and breathing too, I suppose, if you could manage it! 
You do without too blamed much right now, trying to 
beat yourself to being a saint! Of course I'd help my¬ 
self and leave you to go without—you 're enough to 
make a man ache to shoot some sense into you with a 
cannon! And for God's sake, who are you pinching and 


88 


SLIPPY McGEE 


scraping and going without for? A bunch of hickey 
factory-shuckers that haven’t got sense enough to talk 
American, and a lot of mill-hands with beans on ’em 
like bone buttons! They ain’t worth it. While I’m in 
the humor, take it from me there ain’t anybody worth 
anything anyhow!” 

4 ‘Oh, Mr. Flint! What a shame and a sin!” called 
another voice. ‘ ‘ Oh, Mr. Flint, I’m ashamed of you! ’ ’ 
There in the freedom of the Saturday morning sunlight 
stood Mary Virginia, her red Irish setter Kerry beside 
her. 

“I came over,” said she, “to see how the baby-moths 
are getting on this morning, and to know if the last hairy 
gentleman I brought spins into a cocoon or buries him¬ 
self in the ground. And then I heard Mr. Flint—and 
what he said is unkind, and untrue, and not a bit like 
him. Why, everybody’s worth everything you can do 
for them—only some are worth more.” 

The wild wrath died out of his face. As usual, he 
softened at sight of her. 

“Oh, well, miss, I wasn’t thinking of the like of you 
—and him,” he jerked his head at me, half apologetically, 
“nor young Mayne, nor the little Madame. You ’re dif¬ 
ferent. ’ ’ 

“Why, no, we aren’t, really,” said Mary Virginia, 
puckering her brows adorably. “We only seem to be 
different—but we are just exactly like everybody else, 
only we know it, and some people never can seem to find 
it out—and there’s the difference! You see?” That 
was the befuddled manner in which Mary Virginia very 
often explained things. If God was good to you, you 
got a little glimmer of what she meant and was trying 


ENTER KERRY 


89 


to tell you. Mary Virginia often talked as the alchem¬ 
ists used to write—cryptically, abstrusely, as if to hide 
the golden truth from all but the initiate. 

“Come and shake hands with Mr. Flint, Kerry,” said 
she to the setter. 4 ‘ I want you to help make him under¬ 
stand things it’s high time he should know. Nobody 
can do that better than a good dog can.” 

Kerry looked a trifle doubtful, but having been told 
to do a certain thing, he obeyed, as a good dog does. 
Gravely he sat up and held out an obedient paw, which 
the man took mechanically. But meeting the clear hazel 
eyes, he dropped his hand upon the shining head with 
the gesture of one who desires to become friends. Ac¬ 
cepting this, Kerry reached up a nose and nuzzled. 
Then he wagged his plumy tail. 

“There!” said Mary Virginia, delightedly. “Now, 
don’t you see how horrid it was to talk the way you 
talked? Why, Kerry likes you, and Kerry is a sensible 
dog.” 

“Yes, miss,” and he looked at Mary Virginia very 
much as the dog did, trustingly, but a little bewildered. 

“Aren’t you sorry you said that?” 

“Y-e-s, seeing you seem to think it was wrong.” 

“Well, you ’ll know better from now on,” said Mary 
Virginia, comfortingly. She looked at him searchingly 
for a minute, and he met her look without flinching. 
That had been the one hopeful sign, from the first—that 
he never refused to meet your glance, but gave you back 
one just as steady, if more suspicious. 

“Mr. Flint,” said Mary Virginia, “you’ve about 
made up your mind to stay on here with the Padre, 
haven’t you? For a good long while, at any rate? 


90 


SLIPPY McGEE 


You wouldn’t like to leave the Padre, would you?” 

He stiffened. One could see the struggle within him. 

“Well, miss, I can’t see but that I’ve just got to stay 
on—for awhile. Until he’s tired of me and my ways, 
anyhow,” he said gloomily. 

Mary Virginia dismissed my tiredness with an airy 
wave of her hand. She smiled. 

“Do you know,” said she earnestly, “I’ve had the 
funniest idea about you, from the very first time I saw 
you? Well, I have. I’ve somehow got the notion that 
you and the Padre belong. I think that’s why you 
came. I think you belong right here, in that darling 
little house, studying butterflies and mounting them so 
beautifully they look alive. I think you ’re never going 
to go away anywhere any more, but that you ’re going 
to stay right here as long as you live! ’ ’ 

His face turned an ugly white, and his mouth fell 
open. He looked at Mary Virginia almost with horror— 
Saul might have looked thus at the Witch of Endor when 
she summoned the shade of Samuel to tell him that the 
kingdom had been rent from his hand and his fate was 
upon him. 

Mary Virginia nodded, thoughtfully. 

“I feel so sure of it,” said she, confidently, “that I’m 
going to ask you to do me a favor. I want you to take 
care of Kerry for me. You know I’m going away to 
school next week, and—he can’t stay at home when I’m 
not there. My father’s away frequently, and he 
couldn’t take Kerry about with him, of course. And 
he couldn’t be left with the servants—somehow he 
doesn’t like the colored people. He always growls at 
them, and they ’re afraid of him. And my mother dis- 


ENTER KERRY 


91 


likes dogs intensely—she ’s afraid of them, except those 
horrible little toy-things that aren’t dogs any more.” 
The scorn of the real dog-lover was in her voice. 
“Kerry’s used to the Parish House. He loves the 
Padre, he ’ll soon love you, and he likes to play with 
Pitache, so Madame would n’t mind his being here. And 
—I’d be more satisfied in my . mind if he were with 
somebody that—that needed him—and would like him 
a whole lot—somebody like you,” she finished. 

Now, Mary Virginia regarded Kerry even as the apple 
of her eye. The dog was a noble and beautiful specimen 
of his race, thoroughbred to the bone, a fine field dog, 
and the pride of the child’s heart. He was what only 
that most delightful of dogs, a thoroughbred Irish setter, 
can be. John Flint gasped. Something perplexed, in¬ 
credulous, painful, dazzled, crept into his face and looked 
out of his eyes. 

“Jfef” he gasped. “You mean you ’re willing to let 
me keep your dog for you? Yours?” 

“I want to give him to you,” said Mary Virginia 
bravely enough, though her voice trembled. “I am per¬ 
fectly sure you ’ll love him—better than any one else in 
the world would, except me myself. I don’t know why 
I know that, but I do know it. If you wanted to go 
away, later on, why, you could turn him over to the 
Padre, because of course you wouldn’t want to have a 
dog following you about everywhere. They ’re a lot of 
bother. But—somehow, I think you ’ll keep him. I 
think you’ll love him. He—he’s a darling dog.” She 
was too proud to turn her head aside, but two large tears 
rolled down her cheeks, like dew upon a rose. 

John Flint stood stock-still, looking from her to the 


92 


SLIPPY McGEE 


dog, and back again. Kerry, sensing that something was 
wrong with his little mistress, pawed her skirts and 
whined. 

“Now I come to think of it,” said John Flint slowly, 
“I never had anything—anything alive, I mean—belong 
to me before.” 

Mary Virginia glanced up at him shrewdly, and smiled 
through her tears. Her smile makes a funny delicious 
red V of her lower lip, and is altogether adorable and 
seductive. 

“That’s just exactly why you thought nobody was 
worth anything,” she said. Then she bent over her dog 
and kissed him between his beautiful hazel eyes. 

“Kerry, dear,” said she, “Kerry, dear Kerry, you 
don’t belong to me any more. I—I’ve got to go away 
to school—and you know you wouldn’t be happy at 
home without me. You belong to Mr. Flint now, and 
I’m sure he needs you, and I know he ’ll love you almost 
as much as I do, and he ’ll be very, very good to you. 
So you ’re to stay with him, and—stand by him and be 
his dog, like you were mine. You ’ll remember, Kerry? 
Good-by, my dear, dear, darling dog!” She kissed him 
again, patted him, and thrust his collar into his new 
owner’s hand. 

“Go—good-by, everybody!” said she, in a muffled 
voice, and ran. I think she would have cried childishly 
in another moment; and she was trying hard to remem¬ 
ber that she was growing up! 

John Flint stood staring after her, his hand on the 
dog’s collar, holding him in. His face was still without 
a vestige of color, and his eyes glittered. Then his other 
hand crept out to touch the dog’s head. 


ENTER KERRY 


93 


“It *s wet—where she dropped tears on it! Parson 
. . . she’s given me her dog . . . that she loves enough 
to cry over! ’ ’ 

“He 'sa very fine dog, and she has had him and loved 
him from his puppyhood,” I reminded him. And I 
added, with a wily tongue: “You can always turn him 
over to me, you know—if you decide to take to the road 
and wish to get rid of a troublesome companion. A 
dog is bad company for a man who wishes to dodge the 
police.’ ’ 

But he only shook his head. His eyes were troubled, 
and his forehead wrinkled. 

“Parson,” said he, hesitatingly, “did you ever feel 
like you’d been caught by—by Something reaching down 
out of the dark ? Something big that you could n’t see 
and could n’t ever hope to get away from, because it’s 
always on the job? Ain’t it a hell of a feeling?” 

“Yes,” I agreed. “I’ve felt—caught by that Some¬ 
thing, too. And it is at first a terrifying sensation. 
Until—you learn to be glad. ’ ’ 

“You ’re caught—and you know under your hat 
you ’re never going to be able to get away any more. 
It ’ll hold you till you die!” said he, a little wildly. 
“My God! I’m caught! First It bit off a leg on me, 
so I couldn’t run. Then It wished you and your bugs 
on me. And now— Yes, sir; I’m done for. That 
kid got my goat this morning. My God, who’d believe 
it ? But it’s true: I’m done for. She gave me her dog 
and she got my goat! ’ ’ 


CHAPTER VI 


“thy servant will go and fight with this 
philistine” 

1 Sam. 17: 32. 

M ARY VIRGINIA had gone, weeping and be- 
wept, and the spirit of youth seemed to have 
gone with her, leaving the Parish House 
darkened because of its absence. A sorrowful quiet 
brooded over the garden that no longer echoed a caroling 
voice. Kerry, seeking vainly for the little mistress, 
would come whining back to John Flint, and look up 
mutely into his face; and finding no promise there, lie 
down, whimpering, at his feet. The man seemed as deso¬ 
late as the dog, because of the child’s departure. 

“When I come back,” Mary Virginia said to him at 
parting, “I expect you ’ll know more about moths and 
butterflies than anybody else in the world does. You ’re 
that sort. I’d love to be here, watching you grow up 
into it, but I’ve got to go away and grow up into some¬ 
thing myself. I’m very glad you came here, Mr. Flint. 
You’ve helped me, lots.” 

“Me?” with husky astonishment. 

“You, of course,” said the child, serenely. “Because 
you are such a good man, Mr. Flint, and so patient, and 
you stick at what you try to do until you do it better than 
anybody else does. Often and often when I’ve been 
trying to do sums—I’m frightfully stupid about arith- 

94 


THY SERVANT WILL GO AND FIGHT 95 


metic—and I wanted to give up, I’d think of you over 
here just trying and trying and keeping right on trying, 
until you’d gotten what you wanted to know; and then 
I’d keep on trying, too. The funny part is, that I like 
you for making me do it. You see, I’m a very, very 
bad person in some things, Mr. Flint,” she said frankly. 
*‘Why, when my mother has to tell me to look at so and 
so, and see how well they behave, or how nicely they can 
do certain things, and how good they are, and why don’t 
I profit by such a good example, a perfectly horrid 
raging sort of feeling comes all over me, and I want to 
be as naughty as naughty! I feel like doing and saying 
things I’d never want to do or say, if it was n’t for that 
good example. I just can’t seem to bear being good-ex- 
ampled. But you ’re different, thank goodness. Most 
really good people are different, I guess.” 

He looked at her, dumbly—he had no words at his 
command. She missed the irony and the tragedy, but 
she sensed the depths of feeling under that mute exterior. 

“I’m glad you ’re sorry I’m going away,” said she, 
with the directness that was so engaging. “I perfectly 
love people to feel sorry to part with me. I hope and 
hope they ’ll keep on being sorry—because they ’ll be 
that much gladder when I come back. I don’t believe 
there’s anything quite so wonderful and beautiful as 
having other folks like you, except it’s liking other folks 
yourself! ’ ’ 

“I never had to be bothered about it, either way,” 
said he dryly. His face twitched. 

“Maybe that’s because you never stayed still long 
enough in any one place to catch hold,” said she, and 
laughed at him. 



96 


SLIPPY McGEE 


‘ 1 Good-by, Mr. Flint! I ’ll never see a butterfly or a 
moth, the whole time I’m gone, without making believe 
he’s a messenger from Madame, and the Padre, and 
you, and Kerry. I ’ll play he’s a carrier-butterfly, 
with a message tucked away under his wings: ‘ Howdy, 

Mary Virginia! I’ve just come from flying over the 
flowers in the Parish House garden; and the folks are 
all well, and busy, and happy. But they haven’t for¬ 
gotten you for a single solitary minute, and they miss 
you and wish you’d come back; and they send you their 
dear, dear love—and I ’ll carry your dear, dear love back 
to them!’ So if you see a big, big, beautiful, strange 
fellow come sailing by your window some morning, why, 
that’s mine, Mr. Flint! Kemember!” 

And then she was gone, and he had his first taste of 
unselfish human sorrow. Heretofore his worries had 
been purely personal and self-centered: this was dif¬ 
ferent, and innocent. It shocked and terrified him to 
find out how intensely he could miss another being, and 
that being a mere child. He wasn’t used to that sort 
of pain, and it bewildered him. 

Eustis himself had wanted the little girl sent to a 
preparatory school which would fit her for one of the 
women’s colleges. He had visions of the forward sw T eep 
of women—visions which his wife didn’t share. Her 
daughter should go to the Church School at which she 
herself had been educated, an exclusive and expensive 
institution where the daughters of the wealthy were 
given a finishing hand-polish with ecclesiastical emery, 
as a sort of social hall-mark. Mrs. Eustis had a horror 
of what she called, in quotation-marks, the modern non¬ 
religious method of educating young ladies. 


THY SERVANT WILL GO AND FIGHT 97 


The Eustis house was closed, and left in charge of the 
negro caretakers, for Mrs. Eustis couldn’t stand the 
loneliness of the place after the child’s departure, and 
Eustis himself found his presence more and more neces¬ 
sary at the great plantation he was building up. Mrs. 
Eustis left Appleboro, and my mother missed her. 
There was a vein of pure gold underlying the placid 
little woman’s character, which the stronger woman 
divined and built upon. 

Laurence, too, entered college that Fall. I had 
coached him, in such hours as I could spare. He was 
conscientious enough, though his Greek was not the 
Greek of Homer and he vexed the soul of my mother 
with a French she said was spoke 

full fair and fetisly , 

After ye scliole of Strattford atte Bowe. 

But if he hadn’t Mary Virginia’s sensitiveness to all 
beauty, nor her playful fancy and vivid imagination, 
he was clear-brained and clean-thinking, with that 
large perspective and that practical optimism which 
seem to me so essentially American. He saw without 
confusion both the thing as it was and as it could be¬ 
come. With only enough humor to save him, he had a 
sternness more of the puritan than of the cavalier blood 
from which he had sprung. Above all was he informed 
with that new spirit brooding upon the face of all the 
waters, a spirit that for want of a better name one might 
call the Race Conscience. 

It was this last aspect of the boy’s character that 
amazed and interested John Flint, who was himself too 
shrewd not to divine the sincerity, even the common- 


98 


SLIPPY McGEE 


sense, of what Laurence called “ applied Christianity.' ' 
Altruism—and Slippy McGee! He listened with a 
puzzled wonder. 

“I wish,” he grumbled to Laurence, “that you'd 
come off the roof. It gives a fellow stiff neck rubbering 
up at you!” 

“I'd rather stay up—the air's better, and you can 
see so much farther,” said Laurence. And he added 
hospitably: ‘ ‘ There's plenty of room—come on up, 
yourself! ’ 9 

“With one leg?” sarcastically. 

“And two eyes,” said the boy. “Come on up—the 
sky 's fine! ’ 9 And he laughed into the half-suspicious 
face. 

The gimlet eyes bored into him, and the frank and 
truthful eyes met them unabashed, unwavering, with a 
something in them which made the other blink. 

“When I got pitched into this burg,” said the lame 
man thoughtfully, “I landed all there—except a leg, 
but I never carried my brains in my legs. I hadn't 
got any bats in my belfry. But I'm getting 'em. I'm 
getting 'em so bad that when I hear some folks talk 
bughouse these days it pretty near listens like good 
sense to me. Why, kid, I'm nut enough now to dangle 
over the edge of believing you know what you 're talk¬ 
ing about!” 

4 ‘ Fall over: I know I know what I'm talking about ,' 9 
said Laurence magnificently. 

“I'm double-crossed,” said John Flint, soberly and 
sadly, “Anyway I look at it—” he swept the horizon 
with a widedlung gesture, “it's bugs for mine. I began 
by grannying bugs for him, 99 he tossed his head bull- 


THY SERVANT WILL GO AND FIGHT 99 


like in my direction, “and I stand around swallowing 
hot air from you —” He glared at Laurence, “and 
what’s the result? Why, that I’ve got bugs in the 
bean, that ’s what! Think of me licking an all-day 
sucker a kid dopes out! Me! Oh, he—venly saints!” 
he gulped. “Ain’t I the nut, though?” 

“Well, supposing?” said Laurence, laughing. “Buck 
up! You could be a bad egg instead of a good nut, you 
know! ’ ’ 

John Flint’s eyes slitted, then widened; his mouth 
followed suit almost automatically. He looked at me. 

“Can you beat it?” he wondered. 

“Beating a bad egg would be a waste of time 
I wouldn’t be guilty of,” said I amusedly. “But I 
hope to live to see the good nut grow into a fine 
tree. ’ ’ 

“Do your damnedest—excuse me, parson!” said he 
contritely. “I mean, don’t stop for a little thing like 
me!” 

Laurence leaned forward. “Man,” said he, im¬ 
pressively, “he won’t have to! You ’ll be marking time 
and keeping step with him yourself before you know 
it!” 

“Huh!” said John Flint, non-committally. 

Laurence came to spend his last evening at home with 
us. 

“Padre,” said he, when we walked up and down in the 
garden, after an old custom, after dinner, “do you 
really know what I mean to do when I’ve finished col¬ 
lege and start out on my own hook ? ’ ’ 

“Put ‘Mayne & Son’ on the judge’s shingle and walk 


100 SLIPPY McGEE 

around the block forty times a day to look at it!” said 
I, promptly. 

“Of course,” said he. “That first. But a legal 
shingle can be turned into as handy a weapon as one 
could wish for, Padre, and 1 ’m going to take that 
shingle and spank this sleepy-headed old town wid<j 
awake with it! ” He spoke with the conviction of youth, 
so sure of itself that there is no room for doubt. There 
was in him, too, a hint of latent power which was im¬ 
pressive. One did not laugh at Laurence. 

“It’s my tow T n,” with his chin out. “It could be 
a mighty good town. It’s going to become one. I ex¬ 
pect to live all my life right here, among my own people, 
and they’ve got to make it worth my while. I don’t 
propose to cut myself down to fit any little hole: I in¬ 
tend to make that hole big enough to fit my possible 
measure.” 

* ‘ May an old friend wish more power to your shovel ? ’’ 

i 1 It ’ll be a steam shovel! ’ ’ said he, gaily. Then his 
face clouded. 

“Padre! I’m sick of the way things are run in 
Appleboro! I’ve talked with other boys and they ’re 
sick of it, too. You know why they want to get away? 
Because they think they haven’t got even a fighting 
chance here. Because towns like this are like billion-ton 
old wagons sunk so deep in mudruts that nothing but 
dynamite can blow them out—and they are not dealers 
in dynamite. If they want to do anything that 
even looks new they’ve got to fight the stand-pat¬ 
ters to a finish, and they ’re blockaded by a lot of 
reactionaries that don’t know the earth’s moving. 
There are a lot of folks in the South, Padre, who’ve 


TIIY SERVANT WILL GO AND FIGHT 101 

been dead since the civil war, and haven't found it out 
themselves, and won't take live people's word for it. 
Well, now, I mean to do things. I mean to do them 
right here. And I certainly shan't allow myself to be 
blockaded by anybody, living or dead. You've got to 
fight the devil with fire;—I'm going to blockade those 
blockaders, and see that the dead ones are decently 
buried." 

“You have tackled a big job, my son." 

“I like big jobs, Padre. They 're worth while. 
Maybe I 'll be able to keep some of the boys home—the 
town needs them. Maybe I can keep some of those poor 
kids out of the mills, too. Oh, yes, I expect a right 
lively time!" 

I was silent. I knew how supinely Appleboro lay in 
the hollow of a hard hand. I had learned, too, how such 
a hand can close into a strangling fist. 

“Of course I can't clean up the whole state, and I 
can’t reorganize the woHd," said the boy sturdily. 
“I'm not such a fool as to try. But I can do my level 
best to disinfect my own particular corner, and make it 
fit for men and safe for women and kids to live and 
breathe in. Padre, for years there hasn’t been a rotten 
deal nor a brazen steal in this state that the man who 
practically owns and runs this town had n'ta finger in, 
knuckle-deep. He’s got to go.” 

“Goliath doesn’t always fall at the hand of the son 
of Jesse, my little David," said I quietly. I also had 
dreamed dreams and seen visions. 

“That's about what my father says," said the boy. 
“He wants me to be a successful man, a ‘safe and sane 
citizen. ’ He thinks a gentleman should practise his pro- 


102 


SLIPPY McGEE 


fession decently and in order. But to believe, as I do, 
that yon can wipe out corruption, that you can tackle 
poverty the same as you would any other disease, and 
prevent it, as smallpox and yellow fever are prevented, 
he looks upon as madness and a waste of time.” 

“He has had sorrow and experience, and he is kind 
and charitable, as well as wise,” said I. 

“That’s exactly where the hardest part comes in for 
us younger fellows. It isn’t bucking the bad that, 
makes the fight so hard: it’s bucking the wrong-idea’d 
good. Padre, one good man on the wrong side is a 
stumbling-block for the stoutest-hearted reformer ever 
born. It’s men like my father, who regard the smooth 
scoundrel that runs this town as a necessary evil, and 
tolerate him because they wouldn’t soil their hands 
dealing with him, that do the greatest injury to the 
state. I tell you what, it would n’t be so hard to get rid 
of the devil, if it were n’t for the angels!” 

“And how,” said I, ironically, “do you propose to 
set about smoothing the rough and making straight the 
crooked, my son?” 

“Flatten ’em out,” said he, briefly. “Politics. 
First off I’m going to practice general law; then I ’ll 
be solicitor-general for this county. After that, I shall 
be attorney-general for the state. Later I may be gov¬ 
ernor, unless I become senator instead.” 

“Well,” said I, cautiously, “you ’ll be so toned down 
by that time that you might make a very good governor 
indeed.” 

“I couldn’t very well make a worse one than some 
we’ve already had,” said the boy sternly. There was 
something of the accusing dignity of a young archangel 



THY SERVANT WILL GO AND FIGHT 103 


about him. I caught a glimpse of that newer America 
growing up about us—an America gone back to the older, 
truer, unbuyable ideals of our fathers. 

“I guess you’d better tell me good-by now, Padre,’’ 
said he, presently. “And bless me, please—it’s a pretty 
custom. I won’t see you again, for you ’ll be saying 
mass when I’m running for my train. I ’ll go tell John 
Flint good-by, too.” 

He went over and rapped on the window, through 
which we could see Flint sitting at his table, his head 
bent over a book. 

“Good-by, John Flint” said Laurence. “Good luck 
to you and your leggy friends! When I come back 
you ’ll probably have mandibles, and you ’ll greet me 
with a nip, in pure Bugese.” 

“Good-by,” said John Flint, lifting his head. Then, 
with unwonted feeling: “I’m horrible sorry you’ve 
got to go—I ’ll miss you something fierce. You’ve been 
very kind—thank you.” 

“Mind you take care of the Padre,” said the boy, 
waiving the thanks with a smile. “Don’t let him work 
too hard.” 

“Who, me?” Flint’s voice took the knife-edge of 
sarcasm. “Oh, sure! It don’t need but one leg to 
keep up with a gent trying to run a thirty-six hour a 
day job with one-man power, does it ? Son, take it from 
me, when a man’s got the real, simonpure, no-imitation, 
soulsaving bug in his bean, a forty-legged cyclone 
couldn’t keep up with him, much less a guy with one 
pedal short.” He glared at me indignantly. From the 
first it has been one of his vainest notions that I am per¬ 
versely working myself to death. 


104 


SLIPPY McGEE 


4 ‘There ’s nothing to be done with the Padre, then, 
I’m afraid,” said Laurence, chuckling. 

“I might soak him in the cyanide jar for ten minutes 
a day without killing him,” mused Mr. Flint. “But,” 
disgustedly, “what’d be the use? When he came to 
and found he ’d been that long idle he’d die of heart- 
failure.” He pushed aside the window screen, and the 
two shook hands heartily. Then the boy, wringing my 
hand again, walked away without another word. I felt 
a bit desolate—there are times when I could envy women 
their solace of tears—as if he figured in his handsome 
young person that newer, stronger, more conquering 
generation which was marching ahead, leaving me, older 
and slower and sadder, far, far behind it. Ah! To be 
once more that young, that strong, that hopeful! 

When I began to reflect upon what seemed visionary 
plans, I was saddened, foreseeing inevitable disillusion, 
perhaps even stark failure, ahead of him. That he would 
stubbornly try to carry out those plans I did not doubt: 
I knew my Laurence. He might accomplish a certain 
amount of good. But to overthrow Inglesby, the Boss 
of Appleboro—for he meant no less than this—why, that 
was a horse of another color! 

For Inglesby was our one great financial figure. He 
owned our bank; his was the controlling interest in the 
mills; he owned the factory outright; he was president 
of half a dozen corporations and chairman and director 
of many more. 

Did we have a celebration? There he was, in the 
center of the stage, with a jovial loud laugh and an 
ultra-benevolent smile to hide the menace of his little 
cold piglike eyes, and the meaning of his heavy jaw- 


THY SERVANT WILL GO AND FIGHT 105 


"Will the statement that he had a pew in every church 
in town explain him? He had one in'mine, too; paid 
for, which many of them are not. 

At the large bare office in the mill he was easy of 
access, and would listen to what you had to say with flat¬ 
tering attention and sympathy. But it was in his 
private office over the bank that this large spider really 
spun the web of our politics. Mills, banks, churches, 
schools, lights, railroads, stores, heating, water-power— 
all these juicy flies apparently walked into his parlor of 
their own accord. He had made and unmade gover¬ 
nors; he had sent his men to Washington. How? We 
suspected; but held our peace. If our Bible had bidden 
us Americans to suffer rascals gladly—instead of mere 
fools—we couldn’t be more obedient to a mandate. 

Men like James Eustis and Judge Mayne despised 
Inglesby—but gave him a wide berth. They wouldn’t 
be enmeshed. It was known that Major Appleby Cart¬ 
wright had blackballed him. 

‘‘I can stand a man, suh, that likes to get along in 
this world—within proper bounds. But Inglesby 
hasn’t got any proper bounds. He’s a—a cross be¬ 
tween a Republican mule and a party-bolting boa-con¬ 
strictor, an ’ a hybrid like that has n’t got any place in 
nature. On top of that he drinks ten cents a bottle 
grape juice and smokes five cent cigars. And he’s 
got the brazen and offensive effrontery to offer ’em to 
self-respectin’ men!” 

And here was Laurence, our little Laurence, training 
himself to overthrow this overgrown Goliath! Well, if 
the boy could not bring this Philistine to the earth, he 
might yet manage to give him a few manful clumps on 


106 


SLIPPY McGEE 


the head; perhaps enough to insure a chronic headache. 

So thinking, I went in and watched John Flint finish 
a mounting-block from a plan in the book open upon 
the table, adding, however, certain improvements of his 
own. 

He laid the block aside and then took a spray of fresh 
leaves and fed it to a horned and hungry caterpillar 
prowling on a bit of bare stem at the bottom of his 
cage. 

‘ ‘ Get up there on those leaves, you liorn-tailed horror! 
Move on,—you lepidopterous son of a wigglejoint, or 
I 11 pull your real name on you in a minute and par¬ 
alyze you stiff! ” He drew a long breath. “ You know 
how I’m beginning to remember their real names? I 
swear ’em half a*i hour a day. Next time you have 
trouble with those hickeys of yours, try swearing cater¬ 
pillar at ’em, and you ’ll find out.” 

I laughed, and he grinned with me. 

“Say,” said he, abruptly. “I’ve been listening with 
both my ears to what that boy was talking to you about 
awhile ago. Thinks he can buck the Boss, does he ? ” 

“Perhaps he may,” I admitted. 

“Nifty old bird, the Big Un,” said Mr. Flint, squint¬ 
ing his eyes. “And,” he went on, reflectively, “he’s 
sure got your number in this burg. Take you by and 
large, you lawabiders are a real funny sort, ain’t you? 
Now, there’s Inglesby, handing out the little kids their 
diplomas come school-closing, and telling ’em to be real 
good, and maybe when they grow up he ’ll have a job 
in pickle for ’em—work like a mule in a treadmill, 
twelve hours, no unions, and the coroner to sit on the 
remains, free and gratis, for to ease the widow’s mind. 





THY SERVANT WILL GO AND FIGHT 107 


Inglesby’s got seats in all your churches—first-aid to 
the parson’s pants-pockets. 

“Inglesby’s right there on the platform at all your 
spiel-fests, smirking at the women and telling ’em not 
to bother their nice little noddles about anything but 
holding down their natural jobs of being perfect ladies 
—ain’t he and other gents just like him always right 
there holding down their natural jobs of protecting ’em 
and being influenced to do what’s right f Sure he is! 
And nobody howls for the hook! You let him be It— 
him with a fist in the state’s jeans up to the armpit! 

“Look here, that Mayne kid’s dead right. It’s you 
good guys that are to blame. We little bad ones see 
you kowtowing to the big worse ones, and we get to 
thinking we can come in under the wires easy winners, 
too. However, let me tell you something while I’m in 
the humor to gas. It’s this: sooner or later everybody 
gets theirs. My sort and Inglesby’s sort, we all get 
ours. Duck and twist and turn and sidestep all we want, 
at the end it’s right there waiting for us, with a loaded 
billy up its sleeve: Ours! Some fine day when we ’re 
looking the other way, thinking we’ve even got it on the 
annual turnout of the cops up Broadway for class, why, 
Ours gets up easy on its hind legs, spits on its mitt, and 
hands us exactly what’s coming to us, biff! and we 
wake up sitting on our necks in the middle of day-before¬ 
yesterday and year-after-next. I got mine. If I was 
you I wouldn’t be too cock-sure that kid don’t give 
Inglesby his, some of these days, good and plenty. ’ ’ 

“Maybe so,” said I, cautiously. 

“Gee, that’d be fly-time for all the good guys in this 
tank, wouldn’t it?” he grinned. “Sure! I can see 


108 


SLIPPY McGEE 


’em now, patting the biunp on their beans where they 
think the brain-patch sprouts, and handing out hunks 
of con to the Lord about his being right on his old-time 
job of swatting sinners in their dinners. Yet they ’ll 
all of them go right on leading themselves up to be 
trimmed by the very next holdup that’s got the nerve 
to do them! Friend, believe a goat when he tells you 
that you stillwater-and-greenpasture sheep are some bag 
of nuts!” 

“Thank you,” said I, with due meekness. 

“Keep the change,” said he> unabashed. “I wasn’t 
meaning you, anyhow. I’ve got more manners, I hope, 
than to do sucR, And, parson, you don’t need to have 
cold feet about young Mayne. If you ask me, I ’d bet 
the limit on him. Why, I think so much of that boy 
that if he was a rooster I’d put the gaffs and my last 
dollar on him, and back him to whip everything in 
feathers clean up to baldheaded eagles. Believe me, 
he’d do it!” he finished, with enthusiasm. 

Bewildered by a mental picture of a Laurence with 
ruffled neck-feathers and steel spurs, I hurriedly changed 
the subject to the saner and safer one of our own im¬ 
mediate affairs. 

“Yep, ten orders in to-day’s mail and seven in yester¬ 
day’s; and good orders for the wasp-moths, single or 
together, and that house in New York wants steady sup¬ 
plies from now on. And here’s a fancy shop wants a 
dozen trays, like that last one I finished. We ’re looking 
up,” said he, complacently. 

The winter that followed was a trying one, and the 
Guest Rooms were never empty. I like to record that 


THY SERVANT WILL GO AND FIGHT 109 


John Flint put his shoulder to the wheel and became 
Madame’s right hand man and Westmoreland’s faithful 
ally. His wooden leg made astonishingly little noise, 
and his entrance into a room never startled the most 
nervous patient. He went on innumerable errands, and 
he performed countless small services that in them¬ 
selves do not seem to amount to much, but swell into a 
great total. 

“He may have only one leg,” said Westmoreland, 
when Flint had helped him all of one night with a des¬ 
perately ill mill worker, “but he certainly has two 
hands; he knows how to use his ears and eyes, he’s 
dumb until he ought to speak, and then he speaks to 
the point. Father, Something knew what It was about 
when you and I were allowed to drag that tramp out of 
the teeth of death! Yes, yes, I’m certainly glad and 
grateful we were allowed to save John Flint.” 

From that time forth the big man gave his ex-patient 
a liking which grew with his years. Absent-minded as 
he was, he could thereafter always remember to find such 
things as he thought might interest him. Appleboro 
laughs yet about the day Dr. Westmoreland got some 
small butterflies for his friend, and having nowhere else 
to put them, clapped them under his hat, and then for¬ 
got all about them; until he lifted his hat to some ladies 
and the swarm of insects flew out. 

Without being asked, and as unostentatiously as he 
did everything else, Flint had taken his place in church 
every Sunday. 

“Because it’d sort of give you a black eye if I 
didn’t,” he explained. “Skypiloting’s your lay, 
father, and I ’ll see you through with it as far as I can. 


110 


SLIPPY McGEE 


I couldn’t fall down on any man that’s been as white 
to me as you ’ve been.” 

I must confess that his conception of religion was 
very, very hazy, and his notions of church services and 
customs barbarous. For instance, he disliked the statues 
of the saints exceedingly. They worried him. 

“I can’t seem to stand a man dolled-up in skirts,” 
he confessed. “Any more than I’d be stuck on a dame 
with whiskers. It don’t somehow look right to me. 
Put the he-saints in pants instead of those brown ki- 
monas with gold crocheting and a rope sash, and I’d 
have more respect for ’em.” 

When I tried to give him some necessary instructions, 
and to penetrate the heathen darkness in which he 
seemed immersed, he listened with the utmost respect 
and attention—and wrinkled his brow painfully, and 
blinked, and licked his lips. 

“That’s all right, father, that’s all right. If you 
say it’s so, I guess it’s so. I ’ll take your word for it. 
If it’s good enough for you and Madame, there’s got 
to be something in it, and it’s sure good enough for me. 
Look here: the little girl and young Mayne have got a 
different brand from yours, haven’t they?” 

“Neither of them is of the Old Faith.” 

“Huh! Well, I tell you what you do: you just 
switch me in somewhere between you and Madame and 
him and her. That ’ll give me a line on all of you— 
and maybe it ’ll give all of you a line on me. See?” 

I saw, but as through a glass darkly. So the matter 
rested. And I must in all humility set down that I 
have never yet been able to get at what John Flint really 
believes he believes. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE GOING OF SLIPPY MC GEE 
ITTLE by little, so quietly as to be unnoticeable 



in the working, but with cumulative effect; 


-iL —d built under the surface like those coral reefs 
that finally rear themselves into palm-crowned peaks 
upon the Pacific, during the years * slow upward march 
had John Flint grown. 

Nature had never meant him for a criminal. The evil 
conditions that society saddles upon the slums had set him 
wrong because they gave him no opportunity to be right. 
Now even among butterflies there are occasional aber- 
rants, but they are the rare exceptions. Give the grub 
his natural food, his chance to grow, protect him from 
parasites in the meanwhile, and he will presently become 
the normal butterfly. That is the Law. 

At a crucial phase in this man’s career his true talis¬ 
man—a gray moth—had been put into his hand; and 
thereby he came into his rightful heritage. 

I count as one of my red-letter days that on which 
I found him brooding over the little gray-brown chrysalis 
of the Papilio Cresphontes, that splendid swallowtail 
whose hideous caterpillar we in the South call the orange 
puppy, from the fancied resemblance the hump upon it 
bears to the head of a young dog. Its chrysalis looks so 
much like a bit of snapped-off twig that the casual eye 


111 


112 


SLIPPY McGEE 


misses it, fastened to a stem by a girdle of silk or lying 
among fallen leaves. 

“I watched it ooze out of an egg like a speck of dirty 
water. I watched it eat a thousand times its own weight 
and grow into the nastiest wretch that crawls. I saw 
it stop eating and spit its stomach out and shrivel up, 
and crawl out of its skin and pull its own head off, and 
bury itself alive in a coffin made out of itself, a coffin like 
a bit of rotting wood. Look at it! There it lies, stone- 
dead for all a man’s eyes can see! 

“And yet this thing will answer a call no ears can 
hear and crawl out of its coffin something entirely dif¬ 
ferent from what went into it! I’ve seen it with my 
own eyes, but how it’s done I don’t know; no, nor no 
man since the world was made knows, or could do it 
himself. What does it? What gives that call these 
dead-alive things hear in the dark? What makes a 
crawling ugliness get itself ready for what’s coming— 
how does it know there’s ever going to be a call, or that 
it ’ll hear it without fail?” 

“Some of us call it Nature: but others call it God,” 
said I. 

“Search me! I don’t know what It is—but I do 
know there’s got to be Something behind these things, 
anyhow, ’ ’ said he, and turned the chrysalis over and over 
in his palm, staring down at it thoughtfully. He had 
used Westmoreland’s words, once applied to his own 
case! 11 Oh, yes, there’s Something, because I’ve 
watched It working with grubs, getting ’em ready for 
five-inch moths and hand-colored butterflies, Something 
that’s got the time and the patience and the know-how 


THE GOING OF SLIPPY McGEE 113 


to build wings as well as worlds.” He laid the little 
inanimate mystery aside. 

“It ’s come to the point, parson, where I ’ve just got 
to know more. I know enough now to know how much 
I don’t know, because I’ve got a peep at how much 
there is to know. There’s a God’s plenty to find out, 
and it’s up to me to go out and find it.” 

“Some of the best and brightest among men have 
given all the years of their lives to just that finding out 
and knowing more—and they found their years too few 
and short for the work. But such help as you need and 
we can get, you shall have, please God!” said I. 

“I’m ready for the word to start, chief.” And 
heaven knows he w r as. 

His passion transformed him; he forgot himself; took 
his mind off himself and his affairs and grievances and 
hatreds and fears; and thus had chance to expand and 
to grow, in those following years of patientest effort, of 
untiring research and observance, of lovingest study. 
Days in the open woods and fields burned his pale skin 
a good mahogany, and stamped upon it the windswept 
freshness of out of doors. The hunted and suspicious 
glance faded from his eyes, which took on more and 
more the student’s absorbed intensity; the mouth lost 
its sinister straightness; and while it retained an un¬ 
compromising firmness, it learned how to smile. He 
was a familiar figure, tramping from dawn to dusk with 
Kerry at his heels, for the dog obeyed Mary Virginia’s 
command literally. He looked upon John Flint as his 
special charge, and made himself his fourlegged red 
shadow. I am sure that if we had seen Kerry appear in 


114 


SLIPPY McGEE 


the streets of Appleboro without John Flint, we would 
have incontinently stopped work, sounded a general 
alarm, and gone to hunt for his body. And to have seen 
John Flint without Kerry would have called forth con¬ 
dolences. 

Sometimes—when I had time—I went with him moth¬ 
hunting at night; and never, never could either of us 
forget those enchanted hours under the stars! 

We moved in a quiet fresh and dewy, with the night 
wind upon us like a benediction. Sometimes we skirted 
a cypress swamp and saw the shallow black water with 
blacker trees reflected upon its bosom, and heard the 
frogs’ canorous quarrelings, and the stealthy rustlings 
of creatures of the dark. We crossed dreaming fields, 
and smelt leaves and grasses and sleeping flowers. We 
saw the heart of the wood bared to the magic of the 
moon, which revealed a hidden and haunting beauty 
of places commonplace enough by day; as if the secret 
souls of things showed themselves only in the holy dark. 

For the world into which we stepped for a space was 
not our world, but the fairy world of the Little People, 
the world of the Children of the Moon. And oh, the 
moths! Now it was a tiger, with his body banded with 
yellow and his white opaque delicate wings spotted with 
black; now the great green silken Luna with long curved 
tails bordered with lilac or gold, and vest of ermine; 
now some quivering Catocala, with afterwings spread 
to show orange and black and crimson; now the golden- 
brown Io, with one great black velvet spot; and now 
some rarer, shyer fellow over which we gloated. 

How they flashed and fluttered about the lantern, or 
circled about the trees upon which the feast had been 


THE GOING OF SLIPPY McGEE 115 


spread! The big yellow-banded sphinx whirred hither 
and thither on his owl-like wings, his large eyes glowing 
like rubies, hung quivering above some flower for a mo¬ 
ment, and then was off again as swift as thought. The 
light drew the great Regalis, all burnished tawny brown, 
striped and spotted with raw gold; and the Cynthia, 
banded with lilac, her heavy body tufted with white. 
The darkness in which they moved, the light which for 
a moment revealed them, seemed to make their colors 
alive; for they show no such glow and glory in the com¬ 
mon day; they pale when the moon pales, and when the 
sun is up they are merely moths; they are no longer 
the fantastic, glittering, gorgeous, throbbing Children 
of the Dark. 

Home we would go, at an hour when the morning 
star blazed like a lighted torch, and the pearl-gray sky 
was flushing with pink. No haul he had ever made 
could have given him such joy as the treasures brought 
home in dawns like these, so free of evil that his heart 
was washed in the night dew and swept by the night 
wind. 

My mother, after her pleasant, housewifely fashion, 
baked a big iced cake for him on the day he replaced 
his clumsy wooden peg with the life-like artificial limb 
he himself had earned and paid for. I had wished more 
than once to hasten this desirable day; but prudently 
restrained myself, thinking it best for him to work for¬ 
ward unaided. It had taken months of patient work, of 
frugality, and planning, and counting, and saving, to 
cover a sum which, once on a time, he might have gotten 
in an hour’s evil effort. And it represented no small 
achievement and marked no small advance, so that it 


116 


SLIPPY McGEE 


was really the feast day we made of it. That limb re¬ 
stored him to a dignity he seemed to have abdicated. It 
hid his obvious misfortune—you could not at first glance 
tell that he was a cripple, a something of which he had 
been morbidly conscious and savagely resentful. He 
would never again be able to run, or even to walk rap¬ 
idly for any length of time, although he covered the 
ground at a good and steady gait; and as he grew more 
and more accustomed to the limb there was only a slight 
limp to distinguish him. The use of the stick he 
thought best to carry became perfunctory. I have seen 
Kerry carrying that stick when his master had forgotten 
all about it. 

Meeting him now upon the streets, plainly but really 
well-dressed, scrupulously brushed, his linen immacu¬ 
late, and with his trimmed red beard, his eyeglasses, and 
his soft hat, he convej^ed the impression of being a pro¬ 
fessional man—say a pleasantly homely and scholarly 
college professor. There was a fixed sentiment in Ap- 
pleboro that I knew very much more about Mr. Flint’s 
past than I would tell—w T hich was perfectly true, and 
went undenied by me; that he had seen better days; that 
he had been the black sheep of a good family, gotten 
into a scrape of some sort, and had then taken to travel¬ 
ing a rough road into a far country, eating husks with 
the swine, like many another prodigal; and that aware of 
this I had kept him with me until he found himself 
again. 

So when folks met him and Kerry they smiled and 
spoke, for we are friendly people and send no man to 
Coventry without great cause. And there was n’t a 


THE GOING OF SLIPPY McGEE 117 


child, black or white, who didn’t know and like the 
man with the butterfly net. 

The country people for miles around knew and loved 
him, too; for he walked up and down the earth and went 
to and fro in it, full of curious and valuable knowledge 
shared freely as the need arose. He would glance at 
your flower-garden, for instance, and tell you what in¬ 
sect visitors your flowers had, and what you should do 
to check their ravages. He’d walk about your out¬ 
buildings and commend white-wash, and talk about in¬ 
secticides ; and you’d learn that bees are partial to blue, 
but flies are not; and that mosquitoes seem to dislike 
certain shades of yellow. And then he’d leave you to 
digest it. 

He was a quiet evangelist, a forerunner of that Grand 
Army which will some day arise, not to murder and 
maim men, but to conquer man’s deadliest foe and great¬ 
est economic menace—the injurious insect. 

It was he who spread the tidings of Corn and Poultry 
and Live Stock Clubs, stopping by many a lonely farm 
to whisper a word in the ears of discouraged boys, or 
to drop a hint to unenlightened fathers and mothers. 

He carried about in his pockets those invaluable re¬ 
ports and bulletins which the government issues for the 
benefit and enlightenment of farmers; and these were 
left, with a word of praise, where they would do the 
most good. 

Those same bulletins from the Bureau of Entomology 
had planted in John Flint’s heart the seed which bore 
such fruit of good citizenship. The whole course of his 
early years had tended to make him suspicious of gov- 


118 


SLIPPY McGEE 


emment, which spelt for him police and prison, the 
whole grim machinery which threatened him and which 
he in turn threatened. He had feared and hated it; 
it caught men and shut them up and broke them. If 
he ever asked himself, 4 ‘What can my government do 
for me?” he had to answer: “It can put me in prison 
and keep me there; it can even send me to the Chair.” 
Wherefore government was a thing to hate, to injure 
—and to escape from. 

The first thing he had ever found worthy of respect 
and admiration in this same government was one of its 
bulletins. 

“Where’d you get this?” 

“I asked for it, and the Bureau sent it.” 

“Oh! You ’ve got a friend there!” 

“No. The bulletins are free to any one interested 
enough to ask for them.” 

“You mean to say the government gets up things like 
this—pays men to find out and write ’em up—pays to 
have ’em printed—and then gives ’em away to anybody? 
Why, they ’re valuable! ’ ’ 

“Yes; but they are nevertheless quite free. I have 
a number, if you’d like to go over them. Or you can 
send for new ones.” 

“But .why do they do it? Where’s the graft?” he 
wondered. 

‘ ‘ The graft in this case is common sense in operation. 
If farms can be run with less labor and loss and more 
profit and pleasure, why, the whole country is benefited, 
isn’t it? Don’t you understand, the government is 
trying to help those who need help, and therefore is 
willing to lend them the brains of its trained and picked 


THE GOING OF SLIPPY McGEE 119 

experts? It isn’t the government’s fault if the stupid 
and ignorant and selfish thwart that aim, is it?” 

He said nothing. But he read and re-read the bulle¬ 
tins I had, and sent for more, which came to him 
promptly. They did n’t know him, at the Bureau; they 
asked him no questions; he wasn’t going to pay any¬ 
body so much as a penny. They assumed that the man 
who asked for advice and information was entitled to 
all they could reasonably give him, and they gave it 
as a matter of course. That is how and why he found 
himself in touch with his Uncle Sam, a source hitherto 
disliked and distrusted. This source was glad to put 
its trained intelligence at his service and the only reward 
it looked to was his increased capacity to succeed in his 
work! He simply couldn’t dislike or distrust that 
which benefited him; and as his admiration and respect 
for the Department of Agriculture grew, unconsciously 
his respect and admiration for the great government be¬ 
hind it grew likewise. After all, it was his government 
which was reaching across intervening miles, conveying 
information, giving expert instruction, telling him things 
he wanted to know and encouraging him to go right on 
and find out more for himself! 

Now if he had asked himself what his government 
could do for him, he had to answer: “It can help me 
to make good.” 

And he began to understand that this was possible 
because he obeyed the law, and that only in intelligent 
obedience and co-operation is there any true freedom. 
The law no longer meant skulking by day and terror by 
night; it was protection and peace, and a chance to work 
in the open, and the sympathy and understanding and 


120 


SLIPPY McGEE 


comradeship of decent folks. The government was no 
longer a brute force which arbitrarily popped men into 
prison; it was the common will of a free people, just as 
the law was the common conscience. 

I dare not say that he learned all this easily, or all 
at once, or even willingly. None of us learns our great 
lessons easily. We have to live them, breathe them, 
work them out with sweat and tears. That we do learn 
them, even inadequately, makes the glory and the won¬ 
der of man. 

And so John Flint went to school to the government 
of the United States, and carried its little text-books 
about with him and taught them to others in even more 
need that he; and heckled hopeless boys into Corn Clubs; 
and coaxed sullen mothers and dissatisfied girls into 
Poultry and Tomato Clubs; and was full of homely 
advice upon such living subjects as the spraying of fruit 
trees, and how to save them from blight and scale-inseets, 
and how to get rid of flies, and cut-worms, and to fight 
the cattle-tick, which is our curse; and the preservation 
of birds, concerning which he was rabid. His liking 
for birds began with Miss Sally Ruth’s pigeons and the 
friendly birds in our garden. And as he learned to 
know them his love for them grew. I have seen him 
daily visit a wren’s nest without once alarming the little 
black-eyed mother. I have heard him give the red- 
bird’s call, and heard that loveliest of all birds answer 
him. And I have seen the impudent jays, within reach 
of his hand, swear at him unabashed and unafraid, be¬ 
cause he fed a vireo first. 

I like to think of his intimate friendship with the 
wholesome country children—not the least of his bless- 


THE GOING OF SLIPPY McGEE 121 


ings. He was their chief visitor from the outside world. 
He knew wonderful secrets about things one hadn’t 
noticed before, and he could make miracles with his 
quick strong fingers. He’d sit down, his stick and 
knapsack beside him, his glamorous dog at his feet, and 
while you and your sisters and brothers and friends and 
neighbors hung about him like a cluster of tow-headed 
bees, he’d turn a few sticks and bits of cloth and twine 
and a tack or two, and an old roller-skate wheel he took 
out of his pocket, into an air-ship! He could go down 
by your little creek and make you a water-wheel, or a 
windmill. He could make you marvelous little men, 
funny little women, absurd animals, out of corks or 
peanuts. He knew, too, just exactly the sort of knife 
your boy-heart ached for—and at parting you found 
that very knife slipped into your enraptured palm. 
You might save the pennies you earned by picking ber¬ 
ries and gathering nuts, but you could never, never find 
at any store any candy that tasted like the sticks that 
came out of his pockets, and you needn’t hope to try. 
He had the inviolable secret of that candy, and he im¬ 
parted to it a divine flavor no other candy ever pos¬ 
sessed. If you were a little doll-less girl, he didn’t 
leave you with the provoking promise that Santa Claus 
would bring you one if you were good. He was so sure 
you -were good that he made you right then and there 
a wonderful doll out of corn-husks, with shredded hair, 
and a frock of his own handkerchief. When he came 
again you got another doll—a store doll; but I think 
your child-heart clung to the corn-baby with the hand¬ 
kerchief dress. I have often wondered how many little 
cheeks snuggled against John Flint’s home-made dollies, 


122 


SLIPPY McGEE 


how many innocent breasts cradled them; how many a 
little fellow carried his knife to bed with him, afraid 
to let it get out of reach of a hard little hand, because 
he might wake up in the morning and find he had only 
dreamed it! No, I hardly think the country children 
were the least of John Flint’s blessings. They would 
run to meet him, hold on to his hands, drag him here 
and there to show him what wonders their sharp eyes 
had discovered since his last visit; and give him, with 
shining eyes, such cocoons and caterpillars, and insects 
as they had found for him. It was they who called him 
the Butterfly Man, a name which spread over the whole 
country-side. If you had asked for John Flint, folks 
would have stared. And if you described him—a tall 
man in a Norfolk suit, with a red beard and a red dog, 
and an insect case: 

“Oh, you mean the Butterfly Man! Sure. You T1 
find him about somewhere with the kids . 9 9 If there was 
anything he couldn’t have, in that county, it was be¬ 
cause folks hadn’t it to give if he should ask. 

At home his passion for work at times terrified me. 
When I protested: 

“I was twenty-five years old when I landed here,” he 
reminded me. “So I’ve got twenty-five years’ back- 
work to catch up with.” 

He had taken over a correspondence that had since 
become voluminous, and which included more and more 
names that stood for very much. Sometimes when I 
read aloud a passage from a letter that praised him, he 
turned red, and writhed like a little boy whose ears are 
being relentlessly washed by his elders. 

By this time he had learned to really classify; heav- 


THE GOING OF SLIPPY McGEE 123 


ens, how unerringly he could place an insect in its 
proper niche! It was a sort of sixth sense with him. 
That cold, clear, incisive power of brain which on a time 
had made Slippy McGee the greatest cracksman in 
America, was, trained and disciplined in a better cause, 
to make John Flint in later years an international au¬ 
thority upon lepidoptera, an observer to whom other 
observers deferred, a naturalist whose dictum settled 
disputed points. And I knew it, I foresaw it! 

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! I grew as vain over 
his enlarging powers as if I had been the Mover of the 
Game, not a pawn. I felt, gloriously, that I had not 
lived for nothing. A great naturalist is not born every 
day, no, nor every year, nor even every century. And 
I had caught me a great burglar and I had hatched me 
a great naturalist! My Latin soul was enraptured with 
this ironic anomaly. I could not choose but love the man 
for that. 

I really had some cause for vanity. Others than my¬ 
self had been gradually drawn to the unassuming But¬ 
terfly Man. Westmoreland loved him. A sympathetic 
listener who seldom contradicted, but often shrewdly 
suggested, Flint somehow knew how to bring out the 
big doctor’s best; and in consequence found himself in 
contact with a mind above all meanness and a nature as 
big and clean as a spray-swept beach. 

“Oh, my, my, my, what a surgeon gone to waste!” 
Westmoreland would lament, watching the long, sure 
fingers at work. “Well, I suppose it’s all for the best 
that Father De Ranee beat me to you—at least you’ve 
done less damage learning your trade.” So absorbed 
would he become that he sometimes forgot cross patients 


124 SLIPPY McGEE 

who were possibly fuming themselves into a fever over 
his delay. 

Eustis, who had met the Butterfly Man on the coun¬ 
try roads and had stopped his horse for an informal 
chat, would thereafter go out of his way for a talk with 
him. These two reticent men liked each other im¬ 
mensely. At opposite poles, absolutely dissimilar, they 
yet had odd similarities and meeting-points. Eustis was 
nothing if not practical; he was never too busy to for¬ 
get to be kind. Books and pamphlets that neither Flint 
nor I could have hoped to possess found their way to us 
through him. Scientific periodicals and the better 
magazines came regularly to John Flint’s address. 
That was Eustis’s way. This friendship put the finish¬ 
ing touch upon the Butterfly Man’s repute. He was 
my associate, and my mother was devoted to him. Miss 
Sally Ruth, whose pet pear-tree he had saved and whose 
pigeons he had cured, approved of him, too, and said 
so with her usual openness. Westmoreland was known 
to be his firm friend; nobody could forget the incident 
of those butterflies in the doctor’s hat! Major Cart¬ 
wright liked him so much that he even bore with the 
dogs, though Pitache in particular must have sorely 
strained his patience. Pitache cherished the notion that 
it was his duty to pass upon all visitors to the Butterfly 
Man’s rooms. For some reason, known only to himself, 
the little dog also cherished a deep-seated grudge 
against the major, the very sound of whose voice out¬ 
side the door was enough to send him howling under 
the table, where he lay with his head on his paws, a wary 
eye cocked balefully, and his snarls punctuating the 
Major’s remarks. 


THE GOING OF SLIPPY McGEE 125 


“He smells my Unitarian soul, confound him!” said 
the major. “An* he’s so orthodox he thinks he ’ll get 
chucked out of dog-heaven, if he does n’t show his disap¬ 
proval.” 

The little dog did finally learn to accept the major’s 
presence without outward protest; though the major de¬ 
clared that Pitache always hung down his tail when he 
came and hung it up when he left! 

The Butterfly Man accepted whatever friendliness was 
proffered without diffidence, but with no change in his 
natural reserve. You could tell him anything: he 
listened, made few comments and gave no advice, was 
absolutely non-shockable, and never repeated what he 
heard. The unaffected simplicity of his manner de¬ 
lighted my mother. She said you couldn’t tell her— 
there was good blood in that man, and he had been more 
than any mere tramp before he fell into our hands! 
Why, just observe his manner, if you please! It was 
the same to everybody; he had, one might think, no 
sense whatever of caste, creed, age, sex, or color; and 
yet he neither gave offense nor received it. 

Those outbursts which had so terrified me at first came 
at rare and rarer intervals. If I were to live for a 
thousands years I should never be able to forget the last 
and worst; which fell upon him suddenly and without 
warning, on a fine morning while he sat on the steps of 
his verandah, and I beside him with my Book of Hours 
in my hand. In between the Latin prayers I sensed 
pleasantly the light wind that rustled the vines, and how 
the Mayne bees went grumbling from flower to flower, 
and how one single bird was singing to himself over and 
over the self-same song, as if he loved it; and how the 


126 


SLIPPY McGEE 


sunlight fell in a great square, like a golden carpet, in 
front of the steps. It was all very still and peaceful. 
I was just turning a page, when John Flint jerked his 
pipe out of his mouth, swung his arm back, and hurled 
the pipe as far as he could. I watched it, involuntarily, 
and saw where it fell among our blue hydrangeas; from 
w r hich a thin spiral of smoke arose lazily in the calm 
air. But Flint shoved his hat back on his head, sat up 
stiffly, and swore. 

He had been with me then nearly four years, and I 
had learned to know the symptoms:—restlessness, fol¬ 
lowed by hours of depressed and sullen brooding. So I 
had heretofore in a sense been forewarned, though I 
never witnessed one of these outbursts without being 
shaken to the depths. This one was different—as if the 
evil force had invaded him suddenly, giving him no time 
to resist. A glance at his face made me lay aside the 
book hurriedly; for this was no ordinary struggle. The 
words that had come to me at first came back now with 
redoubled meaning, and rang through my head like 
passing-bells: 

“For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood but 
against . . . the rulers of the world, of this darkness, 
against the spirits of wickedness.” 

He tilted his head, looked upward, and swore steadily. 
As for me, my throat felt as if it had been choked with 
ashes. I could only stare at him, dumbly. If ever a 
man was possessed, he was. His voice rose, querulously: 

“I get up in the morning, and I catch bugs, and I 
study them, and I dry them—and I go to bed. I get 
up in the morning, and I catch bugs, and I study them, 
and I dry them—and I go to bed. I get up every mom- 


THE GOING OF SLIPPY McGEE 127 


ing, and I do the same damn thing, over and over and 
over and over, day in, day out, day in, day out. Nothing 
else. ... No drinks, no lights, no girls, no sprees, no 
cards, no gang, no risks, no jobs, no bulls, no anything! 
God! I could say my prayers to Broadway, anywhere 
from the Battery up to Columbus Circle! I want it all 
so hard I could point my nose like a lost dog and howl 
for it! 

“. . . . There is a Dutchman got a restaurant down on 
Eighth Avenue, and I dream at nights about the hot- 
dog-and-kraut, and the ham-and that they give you there, 
and the jane that slings it. Hips on her like a horse, 
she has, and an arm that shoves your eats under your 
nose in a way you’ve got to respect. I smell those eats 
in my sleep. I want some more Childs’ bucks. I want 
to see the electrics winking on the roofs. I want to 
smell wet asphalt and see the taxis whizzing by in the 
rain. I want to see a seven-foot Mick cop with a back 
like a piano-box and a paw like a ham and a foot like a 
submarine with stove-polish on it. I want to see the 
subway in the rush hour and the dips and mollbuzzers 
going through the crowd like kids in a berry patch. I 
want to see a ninety-story building going up, and the 
wops crawling on it like ants. I want to see the bread¬ 
line, and the panhandlers, and the bums in Union 
Square. I want a bellyful of the happy dust the old 
town hands out—the whole dope and all there is of it! 
My God! I want everything I haven’t got!” 

He looked at me, wildly. He was trembling violently, 
and sweat poured down his face. 

“Parson,” he rasped, “I’ve bucked this thing for 
fair, but I’ve got to go back and see it and smell it and 


128 


SLIPPY McGEE 


taste it and feel it and know it all again, or I ’ll go 
crazy. You ’re all of you so good down here you ’re 
too much for me. 1 ’m home-sick for hell. It—it comes 
over me like fire over the damned. You don’t fool your¬ 
self that folks who know what it is to be damned can 
stay on in heaven without freezing, do you? Well, they 
can’t. I can’t help it! I can’t! I ’ve got to go—this 
time I’ve got to go! ” 

I sat and stared at him. Oh, what was it Paul had 
said we were to pray for, at such a time as this? 

“And for me, that speech may be given to me . . . 
that I may open my mouth with confidence ...” 

But the words wouldn’t come. 

“I’ve got to go! I’ve got to go, and try myself 
out!” he gritted. 

“You—understand your risks,” I managed to say 
through stiff lips. I had always, in my secret heart, 
been more or less afraid of this. Always had I feared 
that the rulers of the world of darkness, swooping 
down and catching him unaware, might win the long 
fight in the end. 

“Here you are safe. You are building up an hon¬ 
ored name. You are winning the respect and confidence 
of all decent people—and you wish to undo it all. You 
wish to take such desperate chances—now!” I groaned. 

“I’ve got to go!” he burst forth, white-lipped. 
“You’ve never seen a dip cut off from his dope, have 
you? Well, I’m it, when the old town calls me loud 
enough for me to hear her plain. I’ve stood her off 
as long as I could—and now I’m that crazy for her I 
could wallow in her dust. Besides, there’s not such a 


THE GOING OF SLIPPY McGEE 129 


lot of risks. I don’t have to leave my card at the sta¬ 
tion-house to let ’em know I’m calling, do I? They 
haven’t been sitting on what they think is my grave to 
keep me from getting up before Gabriel beats ’em to it, 
have they? No, they ’re not expecting me. What I 
could do to ’em now would make the Big Uns look like a 
bunch of pikers—and their beans would have to turn 
inside out before they fell for it that I’d come back to 
my happy home and was on the job again.” 

‘ ‘ If—if you had n’t been so white, I’d have cut and 
run for it without ever putting you wise. But I want 
to play fair. I’d be a hog if I didn’t play fair, and 
I’m trying to do it. I’m going because I can’t stay. 
I’ve got enough of my own money, earned honest, saved 
up, to pay my way. Let me take it and go. And if I 
can come back, why, I ’ll come.” 

He was stone deaf to entreaties, prayers, reasoning, 
argument. The four years of his stay with me, and all 
their work, and study, and endeavor, and progress, 
seemed to have slipped from him as if they had never 
been. They were swept aside like cobwebs. He broke 
away from me in the midst of my pleading, hurried into 
his bedroom, and began to sort into a grip a few ne¬ 
cessities. 

“I ’ll leave on the three-o’clock,” he flung over his 
shoulder to me, standing disconsolate in the door. “I ’ll 
stop at the bank on my way.” I could do nothing; he 
had taken the bit between his teeth and was bolting. I 
had for the time being lost all power of control over 
him, and before I might hope to recover it he would be 
out of my reach. Perhaps, I reflected wretchedly, the 


130 


SLIPPY McGEE 


best thing to do under the circumstances, would simply 
be to give him his head. I had seen horses conquered 
like that. But the road before John Flint was so dark 
and so crooked—and at the end of it waited Slippy 
McGee! 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE BUTTERFLY MAN 

I T was just one-thirty by the placid little clock on 
his mantel. The express was due at three. 

“Very well, ,, said I, forcing myself to face the 
inevitable without noise, “you are free. If you must 
go, you must go.” 

“I’ve got to go! I ’ve got to go!” He repeated it 
as one repeats an incantation. “I’ve got to go!” And 
he went on methodically assorting and packing. Even 
at this moment of obsession his ingrained orderliness 
asserted itself; the things he rejected were laid back in 
their proper place with the nicest care. 

I went over to tell my mother that John Flint had sud¬ 
denly decided to go north. She expressed no surprise, 
but immediately fell to counting on her fingers his avail¬ 
able shirts, socks, and underwear. She rather hoped he 
would buy a new overcoat in New York, his old one 
being hardly able to stand the strain of another winter. 
She was pleasantly excited; she knew he had many 
northern correspondents, with whom he must naturally 
be anxious to foregather. There was much to call him 
thither. 

“He really needs the change. A shorty trip will do 
him a world of good,” she concluded equably. “He is 
still quite a young man, and I’m sure it must be dull 

131 


m 


SLIPPY McGEE 


for him here at times, in spite of his work. Why, he 
has n’t been out of this county for over three years, and 
just think of the unfettered life he must have led before 
he came here! Yes, I’m sure New York will stimulate 
him. A dose of New York is a very good tonic. It regu¬ 
lates one’s mental liver. Don’t look so worried, Armand 
—you remind me of those hens who hatch ducklings. I 
should think a duckling of John Flint’s size could be 
trusted to swim by himself, at his time of life! ’ ’ 

She had not my cause for fear. Besides, in her secret 
heart, Madame was convinced that, rehabilitated, re¬ 
claimed, having more than proven his intrinsic worth, 
John Flint went to be reconciled with and received into 
the bosom of some preeminent^ proper parent, and to 
be acclaimed and applauded by admiring and welcoming 
friends. For although she had once heard the Butterfly 
Man gravely assure Miss Sally Ruth Dexter that the 
only ancestor his immediate Flints were sure of was 
Flint the pirate, my mother still clung firmly to the 
illusion of Family. Blood will tell! 

As for me, I was equally sure that blood was felling 
now; and telling in the atrocious tongue of the depths. 
I felt that the end had come. Vain, vain, all the labor, 
all the love, all the hope, the prayers, the pride! The 
submerged voice of his old life was calling him; the 
vampire extended her white and murderous arms in 
which many and many had died shamefully; she lifted 
to his her insatiable lips stained scarlet with the wine 
of hell. Against that siren smile, those beckoning hands, 
I could do nothing. The very fact that I was what I 
am, was no longer a help, but rather a hindrance; he 
recognized in the priest a deterring and detaining influ- 


THE BUTTERFLY MAN 


133 


ence against which he rebelled, and which he wished to 
repudiate. He was, as he had said so terribly, “home¬ 
sick for hell.” He would go, and he would most in¬ 
evitably be caught in the whirlpools; the naturalist, the 
scientist, the Butterfly Man, would be sucked into that 
boiling vortex and drowned beyond all hope of resuscita¬ 
tion ; but from it the soul of Slippy McGee would emerge, 
with a larger knowledge and a clearer brain, a thousand¬ 
fold more deadly dangerous than of old; because this 
time he knew better and had deliberately chosen the evil 
and rejected the good. By the law of the pendulum he 
must swing as far backward into wrong as he had swung 
forward into right. 

I could not bring myself to speak to him, I dared not 
bid him the mockery of a Godspeed upon his journey, 
dreading as I did that journey’s end. So I stood at a 
window and watched him as with suitcase in hand he 
walked down our shady street. At the corner he turned 
and lifted his hat in a last farewell salute to my mother, 
standing looking after him in the Parish House gate. 
Then he turned down the side-street, and so disappeared. 

From his closed rooms came a long wailing howl. For 
the first time Kerry might not follow his master; more 
yet, the master had thrust the astonished dog into his 
bedroom and shut the door upon him. He had refused 
to recognize the scratch at the door, the snuffling whine 
through the keyhole. The outer door had slammed. 
Kerry raced to the window. And the master was going, 
and going without him! He had neither net, knapsack, 
nor bottle-belt, but he carried a suitcase. He did not 
look back, nor whistle: he meant to leave him behind. 
Sensing that an untoward thing was occurring, a thing 


134 


SLIPPY McGEE 


that boded no good to himself or his beloved, the red 
dog lifted his voice and howled a piercing protest. 

The sash was down, but the blinds had not yet been 
closed to. One saw Kerry standing with his forepaws 
on the window-sill, his nose against the glass, his ears 
lifted, his eyes anxious and distressed, his lip caught in 
his teeth. At intervals he threw back his head, and then 
came the howls. 

The catastrophe—for to me it was no less a thing— 
had come upon me so suddenly that I was fairly stunned. 
From sheer force of habit I went over to the church 
and knelt before the altar; but I could not pray; I could 
only kneel there dumbly. I heard the screech of the 
three o’clock express coming in, and, a few minutes 
later, its longer screech as it departed. He had gone, 
then! I was not dreaming it: it was true. Down and 
down and down went my heart. And down and down 
and down went my head, humbled and prostrate. Alas, 
the end of hope, the fall of pride! Alas and alas for the 
fair house built upon the sand, wrecked and scattered! 

When I rose from my knees I staggered. I walked 
draggingly, as one walks with fetters upon the feet. 
Oh, it was a cruel world, a world in which nothing but 
inevitable loss awaited one, in which one was foredoomed 
to disappointment; a world in which one was leaf by leaf 
stripped bare. 

I could not bear to look at his closed rooms, but turned 
my head aside as I passed them. Disconsolate Kerry 
barked at my passing step, and pawed frantically at the 
window, but I made no effort to release him. What com¬ 
fort had I for the faithful creature, deserted by what 
he most loved? 


THE BUTTERFLY MAN 


135 


His dismal outcries rasped my nerves raw; it was 
exactly as if the dog howled for the dead. And that 
John Flint was dead I had no reasonable cause to doubt. 
He was dead because Slippy McGee was alive. That 
thought drove me as with a whip out into the garden, 
for as black an hour as I have ever lived through—tho 
sort of hour that leaves a scar upon the soul. The gar¬ 
den was very still, steeped and drowsing in the bright 
clear sunlight; only the bees were busy there, calling 
from flower-door to flower-door, and sometimes a vireo's 
sweet whistle fluted through the leaves. Pitache lay on 
John Flint's porch, and dozed with his head between his 
paws; Judge Mayne’s Panch sat on the garden fence, 
and washed his black face, and watched the little dog 
out of his emerald eyes. All along the fences the scarlet 
salvia shot up its vivid spikes, and when the wind 
stirred, the red petals fell from it like drops of blood. 

It seemed to me incongruous and cruel that one should 
suffer on such a day; grief is for gray days; but the 
sunlight mocks sorrow, the soft wind makes light of 
it. I was out of tune with this harmony, as I walked 
up and down with my rosary in my hand. I knew that 
every flying minute took him farther and farther away 
from me and from hope and happiness and honor, and 
brought him nearer and nearer to the whirlpool and the 
pit. I beat my hands together and the crucifix cut into 
my palms. I walked more rapidly, as if I could get 
away from the misery within. My heart ached intoler* 
ably, a mist dimmed my sight, and a hideous choking 
lump rose in my throat; and it seemed to me that, old 
and futile and alone, I was set down, not in my garden, 
but in the midst of the abomination of desolation. 


136 


SLIPPY McGEE 


Through this aching desolation Kerry’s cries stabbed 
like knife-thrusts. . . . And then little Pitache lifted his 
head, cocked a listening ear and an alert eye, perked up 
his black nose, thumped an expressive tail, and 
barked. It was a welcoming bark; Kerry, hearing it, 
stiffened statue-like at the window and fell to whining 
in his throat. The garden gate had clicked. 

Dreading that any mortal eye should see me thus in 
my grief, knowing it was beyond my power of endurance 
to meet calmly or to speak coherently with any human 
being at that moment, I turned, with the instinct of 
flight strong upon me. I knew I must be alone, to face 
this thing in its inevitableness, to fight it out, to get my 
bearings. The gate was turning upon its hinges; I could 
hear it creak. 

Hesitating which way to turn, I looked up to see who 
it was that was coming into the Parish House garden. 
And I fell to trembling, and rubbed my eyes, and stared 
again, unbelievingly. There had been plenty of time 
for him to have visited the bank and withdrawn his ac¬ 
count; there had been plenty of time for him then to 
have caught the three-o’clock express. I had heard the 
train come and go this full hour since. Surely my wish 
was father to the thought that I saw him before me—my 
old eyes were playing me a trick—for I thought I saw 
John Flint walking up the garden path toward me! 
Pitache barked again, rose, stretched himself, and trotted 
to meet him, as he always did when the Butterfly Man 
came home. 

He walked with the limp most noticeable when he 
tried to hurry. He was flushed and perspiring and 
rumpled and well-nigh breathless; his coat was wrinkled, 


THE BUTTERFLY MAN 


137 


his tie awry, his collar wilted, and bits of grass and 
twigs and a leaf or so clung to his dusty clothes. The 
afternoon sun shone full on his thick, close-cropped hair, 
for he carried his hat in his hands, gingerly, carefully, 
as one might carry a fragile treasure; a clean pocket 
handkerchief was tied over it. 

He was making straight for his workroom. I do not 
think he saw me until I stepped into the path, directly 
in front of him. Then, stopping perforce, he looked at 
me with dancing eyes, wiped his red perspiring face with 
one hand, and nodded to the hat, triumphantly. 

‘ 1 Such an—aberrant!” he panted. He was still 
breathing so rapidly he had to jerk his words out. 
“I ’ve got the—biggest, handsomest—most perfect and 
wonderful—specimen of—an aberrant swallow-tail—any 
man ever laid—his eyes on! I thought at first—I was n’t 
seeing things right. But I was. Parson, parson, I Ve 
seen many—butterflies—but never—another one like— 
this !” He had to pause, to take breath. Then he burst 
out again, unable to contain his delight. 

“Oh, it was the luckiest chance! I was standing on 
the end platform of the last car, and the train was pull¬ 
ing out, when I saw her go sailing by. I stared with all 
my eyes, shut ’em, stared again, and there she was! I 
knew there was never going to be such another, that if I 
lost her I’d mourn for the rest of my days. I knew I 
had to have her. So I measured my distance, risked my 
neck, and jumped for her. Game leg and all I jumped, 
landed in the pit of a nigger’s stomach, went down on 
top of him, scrambled up again and was off in a jiffy, 
with the darky bawling he’d been killed and the station 
buzzing like the judge’s bees on strike, and people hang- 


,138 SLIPPY McGEE 

ing out of all the car windows to see who’d been mur¬ 
dered. 

“She led me the devil’s own chase, for I’d nothing 
but my hat to net her with. A dozen times I thought 
I had her, and missed. It was heart-breaking. I felt 
I’d go stark crazy if she got away from me. I had to 
get her. And the Lord was good and rewarded me for 
my patience, for I caught her at the end of a mile run. 
I was so blown by then that I had to lie down in the 
grass by the roadside and get my wind back. Then I 
slid my handkerchief easy-easy under my hat, tilted it 
up, and here she is! She hasn’t hurt herself, for she’s 
been quiet. She’s perfect. She has n’t rubbed off a 
scale. She’s the size of a bat. Her upper wings, and 
one lower wing, are black, curiously splotched with yel¬ 
low, and one lower wing is all yellow. She’s got the 
usual orange spots on the secondaries, only bigger, and 
blobs of gold, and the purple spills over onto the ground- 
color. She’s a wonder. Come on in and let’s gloat at 
our ease—I haven’t half seen her yet! She’s the big¬ 
gest and most wonderful Turnus ever made. Why, Ga¬ 
briel could wear her in his crown to make himself feel 
proud, because there’d be only one like her in heaven! ’ ’ 

He took a step forward; but I could only stand still 
and blink, owlishly. My heart pounded and the blood 
roared in my ears like the wind in the pinetrees. My 
senses were in a most painful confusion, with but one 
thought struggling clear above the turmoil: that John 
Flint had come hack. 

“But you didn’t go!” I stammered. “Oh, John 
Flint, John Flint, you didn’t go!” 

He snorted. “Catch me running away like a fool 


THE BUTTERFLY MAN 


1S9 


when a six-inch off-color swallow-tail flirts herself under 
my nose and dares me to catch her! You’d better be¬ 
lieve I didn’t go!” 

And then I knew with a great uprush of joy that 
Slippy McGee himself had gone instead, and the three- 
o’clock express was bearing him away, forever and for¬ 
ever, beyond recall or return. Slippy McGee had gone 
into the past; he was dead and done with. But John 
Flint the naturalist was vibrantly and vitally alive, built 
upon the living rock, a house not to be washed away by 
any wave of passion. 

This reaction from the black and bitter hour through 
which I had just passed, this turbulent joy and relief, 
overcame me. My knees shook and gave way; I tottered, 
and sank helplessly into the seat built around our great 
magnolia. And shaken out of all self-control I wept as 
I had not been permitted to weep over my own dead, my 
own overthrown hopes. Head to foot I was shaken as 
with some rending sickness. The sobs were tom out of 
my throat with gasps. 

He stood stone still. He went white, and his nostrils 
grew pinched, and in his set face only his eyes seemed 
alive and suffering. They blinked at me, as if a light had 
shone too strongly upon them. A sort of inarticulate 
whimper came from him. Then with extreme care he 
laid the handkerchief-covered hat upon the ground, and 
down upon his knees he went beside me, his arms about 
my knees. He, too, was trembling. 

“Father! . . . Father!” 

“My son. ... I was afraid . . . you were lost . . . 
gone . . . into a far country. ... It would have broken 
my heart ! 9 9 


140 


SLIPPY McGEE 


He said never a word; but hung his head upon his 
breast, and clung to my knees. When he raised his eyes 
to mine, their look was so piteous that I had to put my 
hand upon him, as one reassures one’s child. So for a 
healing time we two remained thus, both silent. The 
garden was exquisitely still and calm and peaceful. We 
were shut in and canopied by walls and roof of waving 
green, lighted with great cream-colored flowers with 
hearts of gold, and dappled with sun and shadow. 
Through it came the vireo’s fairy flute. 

God knows what thoughts went through John Flint’s 
mind; but for me, a great peace stole upon me, mixed 
with a greater, reverent awe and wonder. Oh, heart of 
little faith! I had been afraid; I had doubted and 
despaired and been unutterably wretched; I had thought 
him lost whom the Powers of Darkness swooped upon, 
conquered, and led astray. And God had needed 
nothing stronger than a butterfly’s fragile wing to bear 
a living soul across the abyss! 

We went together, after a while, to his rooms, and 
when he had submitted to Kerry’s welcome, we care¬ 
fully examined the beautiful insect he had captured. 
As he had said, she had not lost a scale; and she was by 
far the most astonishing aberrant I have ever seen, before 
or since. The Turnus is perhaps the most beautiful of 
our butterflies, and this off-color was larger than the 
normal, and more irregularly and oddly and brilliantly 
colored. Their natural coloring is gorgeous enough; but 
hers was like a seraph’s head-jewels. 

I have her yet, with the date of her capture written 
under her. She is the only one of all our butterflies I 


THE BUTTERFLY MAN 141 

claim personally. The gold has never been minted that 
could buy that Turaus. 

“I had the station agent wire for my grip,” said Flint 
casually. “And I gave the darky I knocked down fifty 
cents to soothe his feelings. He offered to let me do it 
again for a quarter. ’ ’ His eyes roved over the pleasant 
workroom with its books and cabinets, its air of homely 
comfort; through the open door one glimpsed the smaller 
bedroom, the crucifix on the white wall. He dropped 
his hand on Kerry’s head, close against his knee, and 
drew a sharp breath. 

“Father,” said he, quietly, and looked at me with 
steady eyes, “you don’t need to be afraid for me any 
more as you had to be to-day. To-day’s the last of my 
—my dumfoolishness.” After a moment he added: 

“Remember what that little girl said when she gave 
me her dog? Well, I reckon she was right. I reckon 
I’m here for keeps. I reckon, father, that you and I 
do belong.” 

“Yes,” said I; and looked over the cases of our but¬ 
terflies, and the books we had gathered, and the table 
where we worked and studied together. “Yes; you and 
I belong.” And I left him with Kerry’s head on his 
knees, and Kerry’s eyes adoring him, and went over to 
the Parish House to tell Madame that John Flint had 
changed his mind and wouldn’t go North just now, be¬ 
cause an aberrant Turnus had beguiled him. 

For a moment my mother looked profoundly disap¬ 
pointed. 

“Are you sure,” she asked, “that this doesn’t mean a 
loss to him, Armand ? ’ ’ 


SLIPPY McGEE 


142 


4 ‘Yes, I am sure.” 

She watched my eyes, and of a sudden she reached 
out, caught my hand, and squeezed it. Her face softened 
with sympathetic and tolerant understanding, but she 
asked no questions, made no comment. If Solomon had 
been lucky enough to marry my mother, I am sure he 
would never have plagued himself with the nine hundred 
and ninety-nine. But then, neither would he have writ¬ 
ten Proverbs. 

Neither the Butterfly Man nor I have ever referred to 
that morning's incident; the witness of it we cherish; 
otherwise it pleases us to ignore it as if it had never 
happened. It had, of course, its results, for with a des¬ 
perate intensity of purpose he plunged back into study 
and research; and as the work was broadening, and called 
for all his skill and patience, the pendulum swung him 
far forward again. 

I had been so fascinated, watching that transforma¬ 
tion, even more wonderful than any butterfly’s, going 
on before my eyes; I was so enmeshed in the web of 
endless duties spun for me by my big poor parish that 
I did not have time to miss Mary Virginia as poignantly 
as I must otherwise have done, although my heart longed 
for her. 

My mother never ceased to mourn her absence; 
something went away from us with Mary Virginia, 
which could only come back to us with her. But it so 
happened that the ensuing summers failed to bring her 
back. The little girl spent her vacations with girl friends 
of whose standing her mother approved, or with rela¬ 
tives she thought it wise the child should cultivate. For 


THE BUTTERFLY MAN 143 

the time being, Mary Virginia had vanished out of our 
lives. 

Laurence, however, spent all his vacations at home; 
and of Laurence we were immensely proud. Most of his 
holidays were spent, not with younger companions, but 
oddly enough with John Flint. That old friendship, re¬ 
newed after every parting, seemed to have grown stronger 
with the boy’s growth; the passing years deepened it. 

“My boy’s forever boasting of your Butterfly Man,” 
said the judge, falling into step with me one morning 
on the street. “He tells me Flint’s been made a mem¬ 
ber of several learned societies; and that he’s gotten out 
a book of sorts, telling all there is to tell about some 
crawling plague or other. And it seems this is n’t all the 
wonderful Mr. Flint is capable of: Laurence insists that 
biologists will have to look Flintward pretty soon, on 
account of observations on what he calls insect allies— 
whatever they are. ’ ’ 

“Well, you see, his work on insect allies is really 
unique and thorough, and it opens a door to even more 
valuable research,” said I, as modestly as I could. 
“Flint is one of its great pioneers, and he’s blazing the 
way. Some day when the real naturalist comes into his 
own, he will rank far, far above tricky senators and 
mutable governors!” 

The judge smiled. “Spoken like a true bughunter,” 
said he. “As a matter of fact, this fellow is a remark¬ 
able man. Does he intend to remain here for good ? ’ ’ 

“Yes,” said I, “I think he intends to remain here—* 
for good. ’ ’ I could not keep the pride out of my voice 
and eyes. Let me again admit my grave fault: I am a 
vain and proud old man, God forgive me! 


144 


SLIPPY McGEE 


“Your goose turned out a butterfly,’’ said the judge. 
‘‘ One may well be pardoned a little natural vanity when 
one has engineered a feat like that! Common tramp, 
too, was n’t he?” 

“No, he wasn’t. He was a most uncommon one.” 

“I could envy the man his spontaneity and origin¬ 
ality,” admitted the judge, rubbing his nose. “Well, 
father, I’m perfectly satisfied, so far, to have my only 
son tramp with him.” 

“So is my mother,” said I. 

At that the judge lifted his hat with a fine old-fash¬ 
ioned courtesy good to see in this age when a youth walks 
beside a maid and blows cigarette smoke in her face upon 
the public streets. 

“When such a lady approves of any man,” said he, 
gallantly, “it confers upon him letters patent of no¬ 
bility.” 

“We shall have to consider John Flint knighted, 
then,” said my mother merrily, when I repeated the 
conversation. “Let’s see,” she continued gaily. 
“W T e ’ll put on his shield three butterflies, or, rampant 
on a field, azure; in the lower corner a net, argent. 
Motto, ‘In Hoc Signo Vinces There ’ll be no sign of 
the cyanide jar. I ’ll have nothing sinister shadowing 
the Butterfly Man’s escutcheon! ’ ’ 

She knew nothing about the trust St. Stanislaus kept; 
she had never met Slippy McGee. 


CHAPTER IX 


NESTS 

L AURENCE at last hung out that shingle 
which was to tingle Appleboro into step with 
the Time-spirit. It was a very happy and im¬ 
portant day for the judge and his immediate friends/ 
though Appleboro at large looked on with but apathetic 
interest. One more little legal light flickering “in our 
midst” didn’t make much difference; we literally have 
lawyers to burn. So we are n’t too enthusiastic over our 
fledglings; we wait for them to show us—which is good 
for them, and sometimes better for us. 

This fledgling, however, was of the stuff which en¬ 
dures. Laurence was one of those dynamic and danger¬ 
ous people who not only think independently them¬ 
selves, but have the power to make other people think. 
No one who came in contact with him escaped this; it 
seemed to crackle electrically in the air around him; he 
was a sort of human thought-conductor, and he shocked 
many a smug and self-satisfied citizen into horrific life 
before he had done with him. 

If this young man had not been one of the irreproach¬ 
able Maynes Appleboro might have set him down as a 
pestilent and radical theorist and visionary. But for¬ 
tunately for us and himself he was a Mayne; and the 
Maynes have been from the dawn of things Carolinian 
“a good family.” 


145 


146 


SLIPPY McGEE 


I don’t think I have ever seen two people so mutually 
delight in each other’s powers as did John Flint and 
Laurence Mayne. The Butterfly Man was immensely 
proud of Laurence’s handsome person and his grace of 
speech and manner; he had even a more profound re¬ 
spect for his more solid attainments, for his own struggle 
upward had deepened his regard for higher education. 
As for Laurence, he thought his friend marvelous; what 
he had overcome and become made him in the younger 
man’s eyes an incarnate proof of the power of will and 
of patience. The originality and breadth of his views 
fired the boy’s imagination and broadened his person¬ 
ality. The two complemented each other. 

The Butterfly Man’s workroom had a fascination for 
others than Laurence. It was a sort of Open Question 
Club. Here Westmoreland came to air his views with a 
free tongue and to ride his hobbies with a gallant zest; 
here the major, tugging at his goatee, his glasses far 
down on his nose, narrated in spicy chapters the Secret 
Social History of Appleboro. Here the judge—for he, 
too, had fallen into the habit of strolling over of an 
evening—sunk in the old Morris chair, his cigar gone 
cold in his fingers, reviewed great cases. And sometimes 
Eustis stopped by, spoke in his modest fashion of his 
experiments, and left us all the better for his quiet 
strength. And Flint, with his eyes alive and watchful 
behind his glasses, listened with that air which made 
one like to tell him things. Laurence declared that he 
got his post-graduate course in John Flint’s workroom, 
and that the Butterfly Man wasn’t the least of his 
teachers. 

I should dearly like to say that the Awakening of 


NESTS 


147 


Appleboro began in that workroom; and in a way it did. 
But it really had its inception in a bird’s ne^t John 
Flint had discovered and watched with great interest 
and pleasure. The tiny mother had learned to accept 
his approach without fear; he said she knew him per¬ 
sonally. She allowed him to approach close enough 
to touch her; she even took food out of hi^fingers. 
Pie had worked toward that friendliness with great 
skill and patience, and his success gave him infinite 
pleasure. He had a great tenderness for the little 
brown lady, and he looked forward to her babies with 
an almost grandfatherly eagerness. The nest was over 
in a comer of our garden, in a thick evergreen bush big 
enough to be called a young tree. 

Now on a sunny morning Laurence and I and the 
Butterfly Man walked in our garden. Laurence had 
gotten his first brief, and we two older fellows were some¬ 
what like two old birds fluttering over an adventurous 
fledgling. I think we saw the boy sitting on the Supreme 
Court bench, that morning! 

As we neared the evergreen tree the Butterfly Man 
raised his hand to caution us to be silent. He wanted us 
to see his wee friend’s reception of him, and so he went 
on a bit ahead, to let her know she need n’t be afraid— 
we, too, were merely big friends Come a-calling. And 
just then we heard shrill cries of distress, and above it 
the louder, raucous scream of the blue jay. 

The bluejay was entirely occupied with his own busi¬ 
ness of breaking into another bird’s nest and eating the 
eggs. He scolded violently between mouthfuls; he had 
finished three eggs and begun on the fourth and last 
when we came upon the scene. He had no fear of us; 


148 


SLIPPY McGEE 


he had seen us before, and he knew very well indeed that 
the red-bearded creature with the cane was a particular 
and peculiar friend of feathered folks. So he cocked a 
knowing head, with a cruel beak full of egg, and flirted 
a splendid tail at his friend; then swallowed the last 
morsel and rowed viciously with Laurence and me; for 
the blue jay is wholly addicted to billingsgate. He paid 
no attention to the distraught mother-bird, fluttering 
and crying on a limb nearby. 

“Gosh, pal, I’ve sure had some meal!” said the blue- 
jay to John Flint. “Chase that skirt, over there, please 
—she makes too much noise to suit me! ” 

But for once John Flint wasn’t a friend to a blue jay 
—he uttered an exclamation of sorrow and dismay. 

“My nest!” he cried tragically. “My beautiful nest 
with the four eggs, that I’ve been watching day by day! 
And the little mother-thing that knew me, and let me 
touch her, and feed her, and wasn’t afraid of me! Oh, 
you blue devil! You thief! You murderer!” And in 
a great gust of sorrow and anger he lifted his stick to 
hurl it at the criminal. Laurence caught the upraised 
arm. 

“But he doesn’t know he’s a thief ahd a murderer,” 
said he, and looked at the handsome culprit with un¬ 
willing admiration.. The jay, having finished the nest 
to his entire satisfaction, hopped down upon a limb and 
turned his attention to us. He screamed at Laurence, 
thrusting forward his impudent head; wdiile the poor 
robbed mother, with lamentable cries, watched him from 
a safe distance. Full of his cannibal meal, Mister Blue- 
jay callously ignored her. He was more interested in us. 
Down he came, nearer yet, with a flirt of fine wings, a 


NESTS 


149 


spreading of barred tail, just above Flint’s head, and 
talked jocularly to his friend in jayese. 

4 ‘You ’re a thief and a robber!” raged the Butterfly 
Man. “You ’re a damn little bird-killer, that’s what 
you are! I ought to wring your neck for you, and I’d 
do it if it would do the rest of your tribe any good. But 
it wouldn’t. It wouldn’t bring back the lost eggs nor 
the spoiled nest, either. Besides, you don’t know any 
better. You ’re what you are because you were hatched 
like that, and there was n’t Anything to tell you what’s 
right and wrong for a decent bird to do. The best one 
can do for you is to get wise to your ways and watch 
out that you can’t do more mischief.” 

The bluejay, with his handsome crested head on one 
side, cocked his bright black eye knowingly, and passed 
derisive remarks. Any one who has listened attentively 
to a bluejay must be deeply grateful that the gift of 
articulate speech has been wisely withheld from him; he 
is a hooligan of a bird. He lifted his wings like half¬ 
playful fists. If he had fingers, be sure a thumb had been 
lifted profanely to his nose. 

The Butterfly Man watched him for a moment in 
silence; a furrow came to his forehead. 

“Damn little thief!” he muttered. “And you don’t 
even have to care! No! It’s not right. There ought 
to be some way to save the mothers and the nests fi^m 
your sort—without having to kill you, either. But good 
Lord, how? That’s what I want to know!” 

“Beat ’em to it and stand ’em off,” said Laurence, 
staring at the ravaged nest, the unhappy mother, the 
gorged impenitent thief. “ ‘Git thar fustest with the 
mostest men.’ Have the nests so protected the thief 


150 


SLIPPY McGEE 


can’t get in without getting caught. Build Better Bird 
Houses, say, and enforce a Law of the Garden—Room 
and Food for all, Pillage for None. You’d have to ex¬ 
pect some spoiled nests, of course, for you couldn’t be 
on guard all the time, and you couldn’t make all the 
birds live in your Better Bird Houses—they wouldn’t 
know how. But you’d save some of them, at any 
rate. ’ ’ 

“Think so?” said John Flint. “Huh! And what’d 
you do with him?” And he jerked his head at the 
screaming jay. 

“Let him alone, so long as he behaved. Shoo him out¬ 
side when he did n’t—and see that he kept outside,” said 
Laurence. “You see, the idea isn’t so much to reform 
blue jays—it’s to save the other birds from them.” 

John Flint’s face was troubled. “It’s all a muddle, 
anyhow,” said he. “You can’t blame the bluejay, 
because he was bom so, and it’s bluejay nature 
to act like that when it gets the chance. But there’s 
the other bird—it looks bad. It is bad. For a thief to 
come into a little nest like that, that she’d been brooding 
on, and twittering to, and feeling so good and so happy 
about— Man, I’d have given a month’s work and pay 
to have saved that nest! It’s not fair. God! Is n’t 
there some way to save the good ones from the bad 
ones?” 

There he stood, in the middle of the path, staring rue¬ 
fully at the wrecked bit of twigs and moss and down 
that had been a wee home; and with more of sorrow than 
anger at the feathered crook who had done the damage. 
The thing was slight in itself, and more than common— 
just one of the unrecorded humble tragedies which daily 


NESTS 


151 


engulf the Little Peoples. But I had seen a butterfly's 
wing save him alive; and so I did not doubt now that a 
little bird’s nest could weigh down the balance which 
would put him definitely upon the side of good and of 
God. 

“I think there is a way,” said Laurence, gravely, 
“and that is to beat them to it and stand them off. All 
the rest is talk and piffle—the only way to save is to 
save. There are no halfway measures; also, it’s a life¬ 
time job, full of kicks and cuffs and ingratitude and 
misunderstanding and failure and loneliness, and some¬ 
times even worse things yet. But you do manage to 
sometimes save the nests and the fledglings, and you do 
sometimes escape the pain of hearing the mothers la¬ 
menting. And that’s the only reward a decent mortal 
ought to hope for. I reckon it’s about the best reward 
there is, this side of heaven.” 

The Butterfly Man swallowed this a bit ungraciously. 

“You ’ve got a devil of a way of twisting things into 
parables. I’m talking birds and thinking birds, and 
here you must go and make my birds people! I was n’t 
thinking about people—that is, I was n’t, until you have 
to go and put the notion into my head. It’s not fair. 
The thing’s bad enough already, without your lugging 
folks into it and making it worse! ’ ’ 

Laurence looked at him steadily. “You’ve got to 
think of people, when you see things like that,” said he, 
slowly; “otherwise you only half-see. I have to think 
of people—of kids, particularly—and their mothers.” 
He turned as he spoke, and stared out over our garden, 
with its sunny spaces, and its shrubs and flowers, and 
trees, to where, over in the sky a pillar of smoke rose 


SLIPPY McGEE 


152 

steadily, endlessly, and merged into a cloud overhang¬ 
ing the quiet little town. 

‘ ‘ The pillar of cloud by day, ’’ said he 11 that leads the 
children—” He stopped, and the whimsical smile faded 
from his face; his jaw set. 

The blue jay, having exhausted his vocabulary of jay- 
ribaldry, screeched one last outrageous bit of billingsgate 
into Flint’s ears, shut up his tail like a fan, and darted 
off, a streak of blue and gray. The Butterfly Man’s 
«yes followed him smilelessly; then they came back and 
dwelt for a moment upon the ruined nest and the flut¬ 
tering mother-bird, still vexing the ear with her shrill 
lamentable futile protests. From her his eyes went, out 
over the trees and flowers to that pillar mounting lazily 
and inevitably into the sky. For a long moment he 
stared at that, too, fixedly. After an interval he clenched 
his hand upon his stick and struck the ground. 

“Nothing ’s got any business to break up a nest! I’d 
rather sit up all night and watch than see what I’ve 
just seen and listen to that mother-thing calling to 
Something that’s far-off and stone deaf and can’t hear 
nor heed. Why, the little birds haven’t got even the 
chance to get themselves born, much less grow up and 
sing! I— Say, you two go on a bit. I feel mighty 
bad about this. I’d been watching her. She knew me. 
She let me feed her. If only I’d thought about the 
jay, why, I might have saved her. But just when she 
needed me I wasn’t there!” ITe turned abruptly, and 
strode off toward his own rooms. Kerry followed with 
a drooping head and tail. But Laurence looked after 
him hopefully. 

* ‘ Padre, the Butterfly Man’s seen something this morn- 


NESTS 


153 


ing that will sink to the bottom of his soul and stay there: 
didn't you see his eyes? Now, which of those two have 
taught him the most—the happy thief and murderer, 
or the innocent unhappy victim? The bluejay’s not a 
whit the worse for it, remember; in fact, he’s all the 
better off, for his stomach is full and his mischief satis¬ 
fied, and that’s all that ever worries a bluejay. And 
there is n’t any redress for the mother-bird. The thing’s 
done, and can’t be undone. But between them they’ve 
shown John Flint something that forces a man to take 
sides. Doesn’t the bluejay deserve some little credit 
for that ? And is there ever any redress for the mother- 
bird, Padre?” 

“Why, the Church teaches—” I began. 

Laurence nodded. “Yes, Padre, I know all that. But 
it can’t teach away what’s always happening here and 
now. At least not to the Butterfly Man and me, . . . 
nor yet the mother-birds, Padre. No. We want to be 
shown how to head off the blue jays.” 

We walked along in silence, his hand upon my arm. 
His eyes were clouded with the vision that beckoned 
him. As for me, I was wondering just where, and how 
far, that bluejay was going to lead John Flint. 

It led him presently to my mother. All men learn 
their great lessons from women and in stress the race 
instinctively goes back to be taught by the mothers of 
it. There were long intimate talks between herself and 
the Butterfly Man, to which Laurence was also called. 
In her quiet way Madame knew by heart the whole mill 
district, good, bad and indifferent, for she was a woman 
among the women. She had supported wives parting 


154 


SLIPPY McGEE 


from dying husbands; she had hushed the cries of fright¬ 
ened children, while I gave the last blessings to mothers 
whose feet were already on the confines of another world; 
she had taken dead children from frenzied women’s arms. 
Just as the Butterfly Man had shown the country folks 
to Laurence, so now Madame showed them both the mill 
folks, the poor folks, the foreigners in a small town dis¬ 
dainful of them; and she did it with the added keenness 
of her woman’s eyes and the diviner kindness of her 
woman’s heart. 

The little lady had enormous influence in the parish. 
And as Laurence’s plans and hopes and ambitions un¬ 
folded before her, she threw this potent influence, with 
all it implied, in the scale of the young lawyer’s favor. 
They began their work at the bottom, as all great move¬ 
ments should begin. What struck me with astonishment 
was that so many quiet women seemed to be ready and 
waiting, as for a hoped for message, a bugle-call in the 
dawn, for just that which Laurence had to tell them. 

“A fellow with pull behind him,” said John Flint, 
‘‘is what you might call a pretty fair probability. But 
a fellow with the women behind him is a steam-roller. 
There’s nothing to do but clear the road and keep from 
under.” And when he went on his rounds among the 
farm houses now it wasn’t only the men and children 
he talked to. There was a message for the overworked 
women, the wives and daughters who had all the pains 
and none of the profits. Westmoreland, who had been 
a rather lonesome evangelist for many years, of a sudden 
found himself backed and supported by younger and 
stronger forces. 

The work was done very noiselessly; there was no 


NESTS 


155 


outward disturbances, yet; but the women were in deadly 
earnest; there were far, far too many small graves in 
our cemetery, and they were being taught to ask why 
the children who filled them hadn’t had a fair chance? 
The men might smile at many things, but fathers 
couldn’t smile when mothers of lost children wanted 
to know why Appleboro hadn’t better milk and sani¬ 
tation. And there, under their eyes bulked the huge 
red mills, and every day from the bosom of this Moloch 
went up the smoke of sacrifice. 

Behind all this gathering of forces stood an almost 
unguessed figure. Not the lovely white-haired lady of 
the Parish House; not big Westmoreland; not handsome 
Laurence, nor outspoken Miss Sally Ruth with a suf¬ 
frage button on her black basque; but a limping man 
in gray tweeds with a soft felt hat pulled down over 
his eyes and a butterfly net in his hand. That net 
was symbolic. With trained eye and sure hand the 
naturalist caught and classified us, put each one in his 
proper place. 

Keener, shrewder far than any of us, no one, save 
I alone, guessed the part it pleased him to play. Lau¬ 
rence was hailed as the Joshua who was to lead all 
Appleboro into the promised land of better paving, better 
lighting, better schools, better living conditions, better 
city government—a better Appleboro. Behind Laurence 
stood the Butterfly Man. 

He seldom interfered with Laurence’s plans; but every 
now and then he laid a finger unerringly upon some weak 
point which, unnoticed and uncorrected, would have 
made those plans barren of result. He amended and 
suggested. I have seen him breathe upon the dry bones 


156 


SLIPPY McGEE 


of a project and make it live. It satisfied that odd sar¬ 
donic twist in him to stand thus obscurely in the back¬ 
ground and pull the strings. I think, too, that there 
must have been in his mind, since that morning he had 
watched the blue jay destroy his nest, some obscure sense 
of restitution. Once, in the dark, he had worked for 
evil. Still keeping himself hidden, it pleased him now 
to work for good. So there he sat in his workroom, and 
cast filaments here and there, and spun a web which 
gradually netted all Appleboro. 

There was, for instance, the Clarion. We had had 
but that one newspaper in our town from time im¬ 
memorial. I suppose it might have been a fairly good 
county paper once,—but for some years it had splut¬ 
tered so feebly that one wondered how it survived at all. 
In spite of this, nobody in our county could get himself 
decently born 01 * married, or buried, without a due and 
proper notice in the Clarion. To the country folks an 
obituary notice in its columns was as much a matter 
of form as a clergyman at one’s obsequies. It simply 
wasn’t respectable to be buried without proper com¬ 
ment in the Clarion. Wherefore the paper always 
held open half a column for obituary notices and poetry. 

These dismal productions had first brought the 
Clarion to Mr. Flint’s notice. He used to snigger 
at sight of the paper. He said it made him sure the 
dead walked. He cut out all those lugubrious and home¬ 
made verses and pasted them in a big black scrapbook. 
He had a fashion of strolling down to the paper’s office 
and snipping out all such notices and poems from its 
country exchanges. A more ghoulish and fearsome 
collection than he acquired I never elsewhere beheld. It 


NESTS 


15T 


was a taste which astonished me. Sometimes he would 
gleefully read aloud one which particularly delighted 
him: 

“A Christian wife and offspring seven 
Mourn for John Peters who lias gone to heaven. 

But as for him we are sure he can weep no more, 

He is happy with the lovely angels on that bright shore.* 

My mother was horrified. She said, severely, that she 
could n't to save her life see w r hy any mortal man should 
snigger because a Christian wife and children seven 
mourned for John Peters who had gone to heaven. The 
Butterfly Man looked up, meekly. And of a sudden my 
mother stopped short, regarded him with open mouth 
and eyes, and retired hastily. He resumed his pasting. 

“I’ve got a hankering for what you might call grave 
poetry," said he, pensively. “Yes, sir; an obituary like 
that is like an all-day sucker to me. Say, don’t you 
reckon they make the people they ’re written about feel 
glad they ’re dead and done for good with folks that 
could spring something like that on a poor stiff? "Wait a 
minute, parson—you can’t afford to miss Broken-hearted 
Admirer: 

“Miss Matty, I watched thee laid in the gloomy grave’s embrace. 
Where nobody can evermore press your hand or your sweet face. 
When you were alive I often thought of thee with fond pride, 
And meant to call around some night & ask you to be my loving 
Bride. 

“But alas, there is a sorrowful sadness in my bosom to-day, 

For I never did it & now can never really know what you 
would say. 

Miss Matty, the time may come when I can remember thee as a 
brother, 


* Heaven. 


158 


SLIPPY McGEE 


And lay my fond true heart at the loving feet of another. 

For though just at present I can do nothing but sigh & groan, 

The Holy Bible tells us it is not good for a man to dwell alone. 

But even though, alas, 1 J m married, my poor heart will still be 
true, 

And oft in the lone night I will wake & weep to think she never 
can be you.” 

—“A Broken-hearted Admirer.” 

“Ain’t that sad and sweet, though?” said the But¬ 
terfly Man admiringly. “Don’t you hope those loving 
feet will be extra loving when Broken-hearted makes ’em 
a present of his fond heart, parson? Wouldn’t it be 
something fierce if they stepped on it! Gee, I cried 
in my hat when I first read that!” Now wasn’t it a 
curious coincidence that, even as Madame, I regarded 
John Flint with open mouth and eyes, and retired 
hastily ? 

For some time the Clarion had been getting worse 
and worse; heaven knows how it managed to appear on 
time, and we expected each issue to be its last. It 
wasn’t news to Appleboro that it was on its last legs. 
I was not particularly interested in its threatened demise, 
not having John Flint’s madness for its obituaries; but 
he watched it narrowly. 

“Did you know,” he remarked to Laurence, “that the 
poor old Clarion is ready to bust ? It will have to write 
a death-notice for itself in a week or two, the editor 
told me this morning.” 

“So?” Laurence seemed as indifferent as I. 

The Butterfly Man shot him a freighted glance. 
“Folks in this county will sort of miss the Clarion, 
he reflected. “After all, it’s the one county paper. 
Seems to me,” he mused, “that if I were going in head, 


NESTS 


159 


neck and crop for the sweet little job of reformer- 
general, I’d first off get me a grappling-hook on my 
town’s one newspaper. Particularly when grapplrqg- 
hooks were going cheap.” 

“Hasn’t Inglesby got a mortgage on it?” 

“If he had would he let it die in its bed so nice 
and ladylike ? Not much! It’d kick out the footboard 
and come alive. Inglesby must be getting rusty in the 
joints not to reach out for the Clarion himself, right 
now. Maybe he figures it’s not worth the price. Maybe 
he knows this town so well he’s dead sure nobody that 
buys a newspaper here would have the nerve to print 
anything or think anything he didn’t approve of. Yes, 
I guess that’s it.” 

“Which is your gentle way,” cut in Laurence, “of 
telling me I’d better hustle out and gather in the 
Clarion before Inglesby beats me to it, isn’t it?” 

“Me?” The Butterfly Man looked pained. “I’m 
not telling you to buy anything. I’m only thinking 
of the obituaries. Ask the parson. I’m—I’m addicted 
to ’em, like some people are to booze. But if you’d 
promise to keep open the old corner for them, why, I 
might come out and beg you to buy the Clarion, now 
it’s going so cheap. Yep—all on account of the obitu¬ 
aries!” And he murmured: 

“Our dear little Johnny was left alive 
To reach the interesting age of five 
When —” 

“That’s just about as much as I can stand of that, 
my son!” said I, hastily. 

“The parson’s got an awful tender heart,” the But- 


160 SLIPPY McGEE 

terfly Man explained and Laurence was graceless enough 
to grin. 

“Well, as I was about to say: I happened to think 
Inglesby would be brute enough to choke out my pet 
column, or make folks pay for it, and things like that 
haven’t got any business to have price tags on ’em. So 
I got to thinking of you. You ’re young and tender; 
also a college man; and you ’re itching to w^ash and 
iron Appleboro—” he took off his glasses and wiped them 
delicately and deliberately. 

“Did you also get to thinking,” said Laurence, crisply, 
“that I’m just about making my salt at present, and 
still you ’re suggesting that I tie a dead old newspaper 
about my neck and jump overboard? One might fancy 
you hankered to add my obituary to your collection!” 
he finished with a touch of tartness. 

The Butterfly Man smiled ever so gently. 

“The Clarion is the county paper,” he explained 
patiently. “It was here first. It’s been here a long 
time, and people are used to it. It knows by heart 
how they think and feel and how they want to be told 
they think and feel. And you ought to know Carolina 
people when it comes right down to prying them loose 
from something they ’re used to! ” He paused, to let 
that sink in. 

“There’s no reason why the Clarion should keep 
on being a dead one, is there? There’s plenty room 
for a live daily right here and now, if it was run right. 
Why, this town’s blue-molded for a live paper! Look 
here: You go buy the Clarion. It won’t cost you 
much. Believe me, you ’ll find it mighty handy—power 
of the press, all the usual guff, you know! I sha’n’t 


NESTS 


161 


have to worry about obituaries, but I bet you dollars to 
doughnuts some people will wake up some morning 
worrying a whole lot about editorials. Mayne—people 
like to think they think what they think themselves. 
They don’t. They think what their home newspapers 
tell them to think. And this is your great big chance to 
get the town ear and shout into it good and loud.” 

A week or so later Mayne & Son surprised Appleboro 
by purchasing the moribund Clarion. They didn’t 
have to go into debt for it, either. They got it for an 
absurdly low sum, although folks said, with sniffs, that 
anything paid for that rag was too much. 

“Nevertheless,” said the Butterfly Man to me, com¬ 
placently, “that’s the little jimmy that’s going to grow 
up and crack some fat cribs. Watch it grow!” 

I watched; but, like most others, I was rather doubt¬ 
ful. It was true that the Clarion immediately showed 
signs of reviving life. And that Jim Dabney, a college 
friend from upstate, whom Laurence hail induced to 
accept the rather precarious position of editor and man¬ 
ager, wrote pleasantly as well as pungently, and so set 
us all to talking. 

I suppose it was because it really had something to 
say, and that something very pertinent to our local 
interests and affairs, that we learned and liked to quote 
the Clarion. It made a neat appearance in new black 
type, and this pleased us. It had, too, a newer, clearer, 
louder note, which made itself heard over the whole 
county. The county merchants and farmers began 
once more to advertise in its pages, as John Flint, who 
watched it jealously—feeling responsible for Laurence’s 
purchase of it—was happy to point out. 


162 


SLIPPY McGEE 


One thing, too, became more and more evident. The 
women were behind the Clarion in a solid phalanx. 
They knew it meant for them a voice which spoke articu¬ 
lately and publicly, an insistent voice which must be 
answered. It noticed every Mothers’ Meeting, Dorcas 
activity, Ladies’ Aid, Altar Guild, temperance gather¬ 
ing; spoke respectfully of the suffragists and hopefully 
of the “public-spirited women” of the new Civic League. 
And never, never, never omitted nor misplaced nor 
misspelled a name! The boy from up-state saw to that. 
He was wily as the serpent and simple as the dove. 
Over the local page appeared daily: 

“Let’s Get Together!” 

After awhile we took him at his word and tried to . . . 
and things began to happen in Appleboro. 

“Here,” said the Butterfly Man to me, “is where the 
blue jay begins to get his.” 

For in most Appleboro houses insistent women were 
asking harassed and embarrassed men certain questions 
concerning certain things which ladies hadn’t been sup¬ 
posed to know anything about, much less w T orry their 
heads over, since the state was a state. So determined 
were the women to have these questions fairly answered 
that they presently asked them in cold print, on the 
front page of the town paper. And Laurence told them. 
He had appalling lists and figures and names and dates. 
The “chiel among us takin’ notes” printed them. Dab¬ 
ney’s editorial comments were barbed. 

Now there are mills in the South which do obey the 
state laws and regulations as to hours, working condi¬ 
tions, wages, sanitation, safety appliances, child labor. 


NESTS 163 

But there are others which do not. Ours notoriously 
did n’t. 

John Flint and my mother had had many a con¬ 
ference about deplorable cases which both knew, but 
were powerless to change. The best they had been 
able to do was to tabulate such cases, with names and 
facts and dates, but precious little had been accom¬ 
plished for the welfare of the mill people, for those who 
might have helped had been too busy, or perhaps un¬ 
willing, to listen or to act. 

But, as Flint insisted, the new Civic League was ready 
and ripe to hear now what Madame had to tell. At one 
meeting, therefore, she took the floor and told them. 
When she had finished they named a committee to 
investigate mill conditions in Appleboro. 

That work was done with a painstaking thoroughness, 
and the committee’s final report was very unpleasant 
reading. But the names signed to it were so unassail¬ 
able, the facts so incontrovertible, that Dabney thought 
best to print it in full, and later to issue it in pamphlet 
form. It has become a classic for this sort of thing 
now, and it is always quoted when similar investigations 
are necessary elsewhere. 

It was the Butterfly Man who had taken that report 
and had rewritten and revised it, and clothed it with 
a terrible earnestness and force. Its plain words were 
alive. It seemed to me, when I read them that I heard 
. . . a bluejay’s ribald screech . . . and the heart-' 
rending and piercing cries of a little brown motherbird 
whose nest had been ravaged and destroyed. 

Appleboro gasped, and sat up, and rubbed its eyes. 
That such things could be occurring here, in this pleasant 


164 


SLIPPY McGEE 


little place, in the shadow of their churches, within 
reach of their homes! No one dared to even question 
the truth of that report, however, and it went before 
the Grand Jury intact. The Grand Jury very promptly 
called Mr. Inglesby before it. They were polite to him, 
of course, but they did manage to ask him some very 
unpleasant and rather personal questions, and they did 
manage to impress upon him that certain things men¬ 
tioned in the Civic League’s report must not be allowed 
to reoccur. One juror—he was a planter—had even had 
the temerity to say out loud the ugly word “pene- 
tentiary . 9 9 

Inglesby was shocked. He hadn’t known. lie was 
a man of large interests and he had to leave a great 
deal to the discretion of superintendents and foremen. 
It might be, yes, he could understand how it might 
very well be—that his confidence had been abused. He 
would look into these things personally hereafter. Why, 
he was even now busily engaged compiling a “'Book of 
Rules for Employees.” He deplored the almost uni¬ 
versal unrest among employees. It was a very bad sign. 
Very. Due almost entirely to agitators, too. 

He didn’t come out of that investigation without some 
of its slime sticking to him, and this annoyed and irri¬ 
tated and enraged him more than we guessed, for we 
hadn’t as yet learned the man’s ambition. Also, 
the women kept following him up. They meant to make 
him comply with the strict letter of the law, if that 
were humanly possible. 

He was far too shrewd not to recognize this; for h£ 
presently called on my mother and offered her whatever 
aid he could reasonably give. Her work was invalu- 


NESTS 


165 


able; his foremen and superintendents had instructions 
to give her any information she asked for, to show her 
anything in the mills she wished to see, and to report 
to headquarters any suggestions as to the—er—younger 
employees, she might be kind enough to make. If that 
were not enough she might, he suggested, call on him 
personally. Really, one could n’t but admire the savoir 
faire of this large unctious being, so fluent, so plausible, 
until one happened to catch of a sudden that hard and 
ruthless gleam which, in spite of all his caution, would 
leap at times into his cold eyes. 

4 ‘Is he, or isn’t he, a hypocrite pure and simple, or 
are such men self-deceived ? ’ ’ mused my mother, pucker¬ 
ing her brows. “He will do nothing, I know, that he 
can well avoid. But—he gave me of his own accord 
his personal check for fifty dollars, for that poor con¬ 
sumptive Shivers woman.” 

“She contracted her disease working in his mill and 
living in one of his houses on the wages he paid her,” 
said I, “I might remind you to beware of the Greeks 
when they come bearing gifts.” 

“Proverb for proverb,” said she. “The hair of the 
dog is good for its bite.” 

“Fifty dollars isn’t much for a woman’s life.” 

“Fifty dollars buys considerable comfort in the shape 
of milk and ice and eggs. When it’s gone—if poor 
Shivers isn’t—I shall take the Baptist minister’s wife 
and Miss Sally Ruth Dexter with me, and go and ask 
him for another check. He ’ll givb it.” 

“You ’ll make him bitterly repent ever having suc¬ 
cumbed to the temptation of appearing charitable,” 
said I. 


166 


SLIPPY McGEE 


We were not left long in doubt that Inglesby had 
other methods of attack less pleasant than offering checks 
for charity. Its two largest advertisers simultaneously 
withdrew their advertisements from the Clarion. 

“Let’s think this thing out,” said John Flint to 
Laurence. “Cutting out ads is a bad habit. It costs 
good money. It should be nipped in the bud. You’ve 
got to go after advertisers like that and make ’em see 
the thing in the right light. Say, parson, what’s that 
thing you were saying the other day—the thing I asked 
you to read over, remember?” 

“When the scorner is punished, the simple is made 
wise; and when the wise is instructed, he receiveth 
knowledge I quoted Solomon. 

“That’s it, exactly. You see,” he explained, “there’s 
always the right way out, if you’ve got sense enough 
to find it. Only you mustn’t get rattled and try to 
make your getaway out the wrong door or the front 
window—that spoils things. The parson’s given you the 
right tip. That old chap Solomon had a great bean on 
him, didn’t he?” 

A few days later there appeared, in the space which 
for years had been occupied by the bigger of the two 
advertisements, the following pleasant notice: 

People Who Disapprove of 
Civic Cleanliness, 

A Better Town, 

Better Kiddies, 
and 

A Square Deal for Everybody, 

Also 

Disapprove of 
Advertising in the Clarion. 


NESTS 167 

And the space once occupied by the other advertiser was 
headed: 

OBITUARIES 

That ghastly poetry in which the soul of the Butterfly 
Man reveled appeared in that column thereafter. It 
was a conspicuous space, and the horn of rural mourning 
in printer’s ink was exalted among us. It was not very 
hard to guess whose hand had directed those counter¬ 
blows. 

When we met those two advertisers on the street 
afterward we greeted them with ironical smiles intended 
to enrage. They had at Inglesby’s instigation been 
guilty of a tactical blunder of which the men behind the 
Clarion had taken fiendish and unexpected advantage. 
It had simply never occurred to either that a small town 
editor might dare to ‘ ‘ come back. ’ ’ The impossible had 
actually happened. 

I think it was this slackening of his power which 
alarmed Inglesby into action. 

“Mr. Inglesby,” said the Butterfly Man to me one 
night, casually, “has got him a new private secretary. 
He came this afternoon. His name’s Hunter—J. How¬ 
ard Hunter. He dresses as if he wrote checks for a 
living and he looks exactly like he dresses. Honest, he’s 
the original he-god they use to advertise suspenders and 
collars and neverrips and that sort of thing in the classy 
magazines. I bet you Inglesby’s got to fork over a man- 
sized bucket of dough per, to keep him. There ’ll be a 
flutter of calico in this burg from now on, for that fellow 
certainly knows how to wear his face. He’s gilt-edged 
from start to finish!” 


168 SLIPPY McGEE 

Laurence, lounging on the steps, looked up with a 
smile. 

“His arrival/’ said he, “has been duly chronicled in 
to-day’s press. Cease speaking in parables, Bughunter, 
and tell us what’s on your mind.” 

The Butterfly Man hesitated for a moment. Then: 

“Why, it’s this way,” said he, slowly. “I—hear 
things. A bit here and there, you see, as folks tell me. 
I put what I ’ve heard together, and think it over. 
Of course I didn’t need anybody to tell me Inglesby 
was sore because the Clarion got away from him. 
He expected it to die. It didn’t. He thought it 
wouldn’t pay expenses—well, the sheriff is n’t in charge 
yet. And he knows the paper is growing. He’s too 
wise a guy to let on he’s been stung for fair, once in 
his life, but he don’t propose to let himself in for any 
more body blows than he can help. So he looks about 
a bit and he gets him an agent—older than you, Mayne, 
but young enough, too—and even better looking. That 
agent will be everywhere pretty soon. The town will fall 
for him. Say, how many of you folks know what 
Inglesby really wants, anyhow?” 

“Everything in sight,” said Laurence promptly. 

“And something around the corner, too. He wants 
to come out in the open and be IT. He intends to be 
a big noise in Washington. Gentlemen, Senator 
Inglesby! Well, why not?” 

“He hasn’t said so, has he?” Laurence was skep¬ 
tical. 

“He doesn’t have to say so. He means to be it, 
and that’s very much more to the point. However, it 
happens that he did peep, once or twice, and it buzzed 


NESTS 


169 


about a bit—and that ’s how I happened to catch it 
in my net. This Johnny he’s just got to help him 
is the first move. Private Secretary now. Campaign 
manager and press agent, later. Inglesby’s getting 
ready to march on to Washington. You watch him do 
it!” 

“Never!” said Laurence, and set his mouth. 

“No?” The Butterfly Man lifted his eyebrows. 
“Well, what are you going to do about it? Fight him 
with your pretty little Clarion? It’s not big enough, 
though you could make it a handy sort of brick to 
paste him in the eye with, if you aim straight and pitch 
hard enough. Go up against him yourself? You ’re 
not strong enough, either, young man, whatever you 
may be later on. You can prod him into firing some 
poor kids from his mills—but you can’t make him feed 
’em after he’s fired ’em, can you ? And you can’t keep 
him from becoming Senator Inglesby either, un¬ 
less,” he paused impressively, “you can match him even, 
with a man his money and pull can’t beat. Now think.” 

The young man bit his lip and frowned. The Butter¬ 
fly Man watched him quizzically through his glasses. 

“Don’t take it so hard,” he grinned. “And don’t 
let the whole salvation of South Carolina hang too heavy 
on your shoulders. Leave something to God Almighty— 
He managed to pull the cocky little brute through worse 
and tougher situations than Inglesby! Also, He ran the 
rest of the world for a few years before you and I got 
here to help Him with it.” 

“You ’re a cocky brute yourself,” said Laurence, 
critically. 

“I can afford to be, because I can open my hand this 


170 


SLIPPY McGEE 


minute and show you the button. Why, the very man 
you need is right in your reach! If you could get him 
to put up his name against Inglesby’s, the Big Un 
would n’t be in it.” 

Laurence stared. The Butterfly Man stared back at 
him. 

“Look here,” said he slowly. “You remember my 
nest, and w T hat that blue jay did for it? And what you 
said? Well, I’ve looked about a bit, and I’ve seen 
the bluejay at work. . . . Oh, hell, I can’t talk about 
this thing, but I’ve watched the putty-faced, hollow¬ 
chested, empty-bellied kids—that don’t even have guts 
enough left to laugh. . . . Somebody ought to sock it 
to that brute, on account of those kids. He ought to 
be headed off . . . make him feel he’s to be shoo’d 
outside! And I think I know the one man that can 
shoo him.” He paused again, with his head sunk for¬ 
ward. This was so new a John Flint to me that I 
had no words. I was too lost in sheer wonder. 

“The man I mean hates politics. I’ve been told he 
has said openly it’s not a gentleman’s game any more. 
You’ve got to make him see it can be made one. You’ve 
got to make him see it as a duty. Well, once make him 
see that, and he ’ll smash Inglesby.” 

“You can’t mean—for heaven’s sake—” 

“I do mean. James Eustis.” 

Laurence got up, and walked about, whistling. 

“Good Lord!” said he, “and I never even thought 
of him in that light. Why . . . he’d sweep every¬ 
thing clean before him!” 

I am a priest. I am not even an Irish priest. There¬ 
fore politics do not interest me so keenly as they might 


NESTS 


171 


another. But even to my slow mind the suitability of 
Eustis was apparent. Of an honored name, just, sure, 
kind, sagacious, a builder, a teacher, a pioneer, the 
plainer people all over the state leaned upon his judg¬ 
ment. A sane shrewd man of large affairs, other able 
men of affairs respected and admired him. The state, 
knowing what he stood for, what he had accomplished 
for her farmers, what he meant to her agricultural in¬ 
terests, admired and trusted him. If Eustis wanted any 
gift within the power of the people to give, he had but 
to signify that desire. And yet, it had taken my But¬ 
terfly Man to show us this! 

“Bughunter,” said Laurence, respectfully. “If you 
ever take the notion to make me president, will you 
stand behind and show me how to run the United States 
on greased wheels ?” 

“If” John Flint was genuinely astounded. “The 
boy’s talking in his sleep: turn over—you ’re lying on 
your back!” 

“You won’t?” 

“I will not!” said the Butterfly Man severely. “I 
have got something much more important on my hands 
than running states, I ’ll have you know. Lord, man, 
I’m getting ready some sheets that will tell pretty nearly 
all there is to tell about Catocala Moths!” 

I remembered that sunset hour, and the pretty child 
of James Eustis putting in this man’s hand a gray 
moth. I think he was remembering, too, for his eyes 
of a sudden melted, as if he saw again her face that 
was so lovely and so young. Glancing at me, he smiled 
fleetingly. 


CHAPTER X 


THE BLUEJAY 

W HEN Mary Virginia was graduated, my 
mother sent her, to commemorate that very 
important and pleasant occasion, one of her 
few remaining treasures—a carved ivory fan which Le 
Brun had painted out of his heart of hearts for one 
of King Louis' loveliest ladies. It still exhaled, like a 
whiff of lost roses, something of her vanished grace. 

“I have a fancy," wrote my mother to Mary Vir¬ 
ginia, “that having been pressed against women’s 
bosoms and held in women’s hands, having been, as it 
were, symbols which expressed the hidden emotions of 
the heart, these exquisite toys have thus been enabled 
to gain a soul, a soul composed of sentience and of 
memory. I think that as they lie all the long, long 
years in those carved and scented boxes which are like 
little tombs, they remember the lights and the flowers 
and the perfumes, the glimmer and gleam of jewels 
and silks, the frothy fall of laces, the laughter and 
whispers and glances, the murmured word, the stifled 
sigh: and above all, the touch of soft lips that used 
to brush them lightly; and the poor things wonder a 
bit wistfully what has become of all that gay and lovely 
life, all that perished bravery and beauty that once 
they knew. So I am quite sure this apparently soul- 
172 


THE BLUEJAY 


173 


less bit of carved ivory sighs inaudibly to feel again the 
touch of a warm and young hand, to be held before 
gay and smiling eyes, to have a flower-fresh face bent 
over it once more. 

“Accept it, then, my child, with your old friend’s 
love. Use it in your happy hours, dream over it a 
little, sigh lightly; and then smile to remember that 
this is your Hour, that you are young, and life and 
love are yours. It is in such youthful and happy smiles 
that we whose day declines may relive for a brief and 
bright space our golden noon. Shall I tell you a secret, 
before your time to know it? Youth alone is eternal 
and immortal! How do I know? ‘Et Ego in Arcadia 
vixi!’ ” 

Mary Virginia showed me that letter, long afterward, 
and I have inserted it here, although I suppose it really 
isn’t at all relevant. But I shall let it stand, because 
it is so like my mother! 

John Flint made for the schoolgirl a most wonderful 
tray with handles and border of hammered and twisted 
copper. The tray itself w T as covered with a layer of 
silvery thistle-down; and on this, hovering above flowers, 
some of his loveliest butterflies spread their wings. So 
beautifully did their frail bodies fit into this airy bed, 
so carefully was the work done, that you might fancy 
only the glass which covered them kept them from 
escaping. 

“You will remember telling me, when you were going 
away to grow up,” wrote John Flint, “to watch out 
for any big fine fellows that came by of a morning, 
Oecause they’d be messengers from you to the Parish 
House people. Big and little they’ve come, and I’ve 


174 


SLIPPY McGEE 


played like they were all of them your carriers. So 
you see we had word of you every single day of all 
these years you ’ve been gone! Now I’m sending one or 
two of them back to you. Please play like my tray’s 
a million times bigger and finer and that it’s all loaded 
down with good messages and hopes; and believe that 
still it would n’t be half big enough to hold all the good 
wishes the Parish House folks (you were right: I be¬ 
long, and so does Kerry) send you to-day by the hand 
of your old friend, 

The Butterfly Man. 

Mary Virginia showed me that letter, too, because she 
was so delighted with it, and so proud of it. I like 
its English very well, but I like its Irishness even better. 

But, although she had at last finished and done with 
school, Mary Virginia didn’t come home to us as we had 
hoped she would. Her mother had other plans, which 
failed to include little Appleboro. Why should a girl 
with such connections and opportunities be buried in 
a little town when great cities waited for just such 
with open and welcoming arms? The best we got then 
was a photograph of our girl in her graduation frock— 
a slim wistful Mary Virginia, with much of her dear 
angular youthfulness still clinging to her. 

It was Mrs. Eustis herself who kept us posted, after 
awhile, of the girl’s later triumphant progress; the 
sensation she created, the bored world bowing to her 
feet because she brought it, along with name and wealth, 
so fresh a spirit, so pure a beauty. There was a certain 
autocratic old Aunt of her mother’s, a sort of awful 
high priestess in the inmost shrine of the sacred elect; 


THE BLUEJAY 


175 


this Begum, delighted with her young kinswoman, 
ordered the rest of her world to be likewise delighted, 
and the world agreeing with her verdict, Mary Virginia 
fared very well. She was feted, photographed, and para¬ 
graphed. Her portrait, painted by a rather obscure 
young man, made the painter famous. In the hands of 
the Begum the pretty girl blossomed into a great beauty. 
The photograph that presently came to us quite took 
our breath away, she was so regal. 

“She will never, never again be at home in little 
Appleboro,” said my mother, regretfully. “That dear, 
simple, passionate, eager child we used to know has gone 
forever—life has taken her. This beautiful creature’s 
place is not here —she belongs to a world where the 
women wear titles and tiaras, and the men wear kings’ 
orders. No, we could never hope to hold her any more.” 

“But we could love her, could we not? Perhaps even 
more than those fine ladies with tiaras and titles and 
those fine gentlemen with orders, whom your fancy con¬ 
jures up for her,” said I crisply, for her words stung. 
They found an echo in my own heart. 

“Love her? Oh, but of course! But—love counts 
for very, very little in the world which claims Mary 
Virginia now, Armand. Ambition stifles him.” I was 
silent. I knew. 

As for John Flint, he looked at that photograph and 
turned red. 

“Good Lord! To think I had nerve to send her 
a few butterflies last year . . . told her to play like 
they meant more! I somehow couldn’t get the notion 
in my head that she’d grown up. ... I never could 
think of her except as a sort of kid-angel, because I 


176 


SLIPPY McGEE 


couldn’t seem to bear the idea of her ever being any¬ 
thing else but what she was. Well . . . she’s not, any 
more. And I’ve had the nerve to give a few insects to 
the Queen of Sheba!” 

“Bosh!” said Laurence, sturdily. “She ought to be 
glad and proud to get that tray, and I ’ll bet you Mary 
Virginia’s delighted with it. She’s her father’s daugh¬ 
ter as well as her mother’s, please. As for Appleboro 
not being good enough for her, that’s piffle, too, p’tite 
Madame, and I’m surprised at you! Her own town is 
good enough for any girl. If it is n’t, let her just pitch 
in and help make it good enough, if she’s worth her 
salt. Not that Mary Virginia is n’t scrumptious, though. 
Lordy, who’d think this was the same kid that used to 
bump my head ? ’ ’ 

“She turns heads now, instead of bumping them,” 
said my mother. 

“Oh, she’s not the only head-turner Appleboro can 
boast of!” said the young man grandly. “We Ve always 
been long on good-lookers in Carolina, whatever else 
we may lack. They ’re like berries in their season. ’ ’ 

“But the berry season is short and soon over, my 
son: and there are seasons when there are no berries 
at all—except preserved ones,” suggested my mother, 
with that swift, curious cattiness which so often astounds 
me in even the dearest of women. 

*‘ Dare you to tell that to the Civic League! ’ ’ chortled 
Laurence. “I ’ll grant you that Mary Virginia’s the 
biggest berry in the patch, at the height of a full season. 
But look at her getup! Don’t doodads and fallals, and 
hen-feathers in the hair, and things twisted and tied, 
and a slithering train, and a clothesline length of pearls 


THE BLUEJAY 


177 


and such, count for something ? How about Claire Dex¬ 
ter, for instance? She mayn't have a Figure like her 
Aunt Sally Ruth, but suppose you dolled Claire up 
like this? A flirt she was bom and a flirt she will die, 
but is n’t she a perfect peach ? That reminds me—that 
ungrateful minx gave two dances rightfully mine to Mr. 
Howard Hunter last night. I didn’t raise any mo¬ 
tions, because, to tell you the truth, I didn’t much 
blame her. That fellow really knows how to dance, and 
the way he can convey to a girl the impression that he’s 
only alive on her account makes me gnash my teeth 
with green-and-blue envy. No wonder they all dote on 
him! No home complete without this handsome orna¬ 
ment!” he added. 

My mother’s lips came firmly together. 

“It is a great mistake to figure Mephistopheles as a 
rather blase brunette,” she remarked crisply. “I am 
absolutely certain that if you could catch the devil 
without his mask you’d find him a perfect blonde.” 

“Nietzsche’s blonde beast, then?” suggested Laurence, 
amused at her manner. 

“That same blonde beast is perhaps the most mag¬ 
nificent of animals,” I put in. For alone of my house¬ 
hold I admired immensely Mr. Inglesby’s secretary. 
He was the only man I have ever known to whom the 
term ‘beautiful’ might be justly applied, and at the 
word’s proper worth. Such a man as this, a two- 
handed sword gripped in his steel fists, a wolfskin 
across his broad shoulders and eagle-wings at either side 
the helmet that crowns his yellow hair, looks at one 
out of many a red, red page of the past with just such 
blue, dangerous, and cloudless eyes. Rolling and reek- 


178 


SLIPPY McGEE 


ing decks have known him, and falling walls, and 
shrieks, and flames mounting skyward, and viking sagas, 
and drinking-songs roared from brass throats, and ter¬ 
rible hymns to Odin Allfather in the midwatches of 
Northern nights. 

He had called upon me shortly after his arrival, his 
ostensible reason being my work among his mill-people. 
I think he liked me, later. At any rate, I had seen much 
of him, and I was indebted to him for more than one 
shrewd and practical suggestion. If at times I was 
chilled by what seemed to me a ruthless and cold-blooded 
manner of viewing the whole great social question I was 
nevertheless forced to admire the almost mathematical 
perfection to which he had reduced his system. 

“But you wish to deal with human beings as with 
figures in a sum,” I objected once. 

“Figures/’ he smiled equably, “are only stubborn— 
on paper. When they ’re alive they ’re fluid and any 
clever social chemist can reduce them to first principles. 
It’s really very simple, as all great things are: 'When in 
doubt, reach the stomach! There you are! That’s the 
universal eye-opener. ’ ’ 

“My dear friend,” he added, laughing, “don’t look 
so horrified. 1 didn’t make things as they are. Per¬ 
sonally, I might even prefer to say, like Mr. Fox in the 
old story, ‘It was not so. It is not so. And God forbid 
it should be so! f But I can’t, truthfully, and there¬ 
fore—I don’t. I accept what I can’t help. Self-preser¬ 
vation, we all admit, is the first law of nature. Now 
I consider myself, and the class I represent, as beings 
much more valuable to the world than, let’s say, your 
factory-hands, your mill-workers, your hewers of wood 


THE BLUEJAY 


179 


and drawers of water. Thus, should the occasion arise, 
I should most unhesitatingly use whatever weapons law, 
religion, civilization itself, put into my hands, without 
compunction and possibly what some cavilers might call 
without mercy; having at stake a very vital issue—the 
preservation of my kind, the protection of my <?lass 
against Demos.” 

He spoke without heat, calmly, looking at me smilingly 
with his fine intelligent eyes: there was even much of 
truth in his frank statement of his case. Always has 
Dives spoken thus, law-protected, dining within; while 
without the doors of the sick civilization he has brought 
about, Lazarus lies, licked by the dogs of chance. No, 
this man was advocating no new theory; once, perhaps, 
I might have argued even thus myself, and done so 
with a clean conscience. This man was merely an oppor¬ 
tunist. I knew he would never “reach their stomachs” 
unless he thought he had to. Indeed, since his coming, 
things had changed greatly at the mills, and for the 
better. 

“The day of the great god Gouge,” he had said to 
Inglesby, “is passing. It’s bad business to overwork 
and underpay your hands into a state of chronic insur¬ 
rection. That means losing time and scamping work. 
The square deal is not socialism nor charity nor a matter 
of any one man’s private pleasure or conscience—it’s 
cold hard common sense and sound scientific business. 
You get better results, and that’s what you ’re after.” 

Perhaps it was because Appleboro offered, at that 
time, very little to amuse and interest that keen mind of 
his, that the Butterfly Man amused and interested Hunter 
so much. Or perhaps, proud as he was, even he could 


180 


SLIPPY McGEE 


not wholly escape that curious likableness which drew 
men to John Flint. 

He was delighted with our collection. He could appre¬ 
ciate its scope and value, something to which all Apple- 
boro else paid but passing heed. John Flint declared 
that most folks came to see our butterflies just as they 
would have run to see the dog-faced boy or the bearded 
lady—merely for something to see. But this man’s 
appreciation and praise w T ere both sincere and encour¬ 
aging. And as he never allowed anything or any¬ 
body unusual or interesting to pass him by without 
at least sampling its savor, he formed the habit of 
strolling over to the Parish House to talk with the limp¬ 
ing man who had come there a dying tramp, was now a 
scientist, with the manner and appearance of a gentle¬ 
man, and who spoke at will the language of two worlds. 
That this once black sheep had strayed of his own will 
and pleasure from some notable fold Hunter did n’t for a 
moment doubt. Like all Appleboro, he wouldn’t have 
been at all surprised to see this prodigal son welcomed 
into the bosom of some Fifth Avenue father, and have the 
fatted calf dressed for him by a chef whose salary might 
have hired three college professors. Hunter had known 
one or tw r o such black sheep in his time; he fancied him¬ 
self none too shrewd in thus penetrating Flint’s rather 
obvious secret. 

My mother watched the secretary’s comings and go¬ 
ings at the Parish House speculatively. Not even the 
fact that he quoted her adored La Rochefoucauld, in 
flawless French, softened her estimate. 

“If he even had the semblance of a heart!’’ said she, 
regretfully. “But he is all head, that one.” 


THE BLUEJAY 


181 


Now, I am a simple man, and this cultivated and 
handsome man of the world delighted me. To me im¬ 
mured in a mill town he brought the modern world’s 
best. He was a window, for me, which let in light. 

“That great blonde!” said Madame, wonderingly. 
“He is so designedly fascinating I wonder you fail to 
see the wheels go ’round. However, let me admit that 
I thank God devoutly I am no longer young and sus¬ 
ceptible. Consider the terrible power such a man might 
exert over an ardent and unsophisticated heart!” 

It was Hunter who had brought me a slim book, 
making known to me a poet I had otherwise missed. 

“You are sure to like Bridges,” he told me, “for the 
sake of one verse. Have you ever thought why I like 
you, Father De Ranee? Because you amuse me. I see 
in you one of life’s subtlest ironies: A Greek beauty- 
worshiper posing as a Catholic priest—in Appleboro!” 
He laughed. And then, with real feeling, he read in his 
resonant voice: 


“I love all beautiful things:; 

I seek and adore them. 

God has no better praise. 

And man in his hasty days, 

Is honored for them.” 

When at times the secretary brought his guests to 
see what he pleasingly enough termed Appleboro’s one 
claim to distinction, the Butterfly Man did the honors 
to the manner born. Drawer after drawer and box after 
box would he open, patiently answering and explaining. 
And indeed, I think the contents were worth coming 
far to see. Some of them had come to us from the 
ends of the earth; from China and Japan and India 



182 


SLIPPY McGEE 


and Africa and Australia, from the Antilles and Mexico 
and South America and the isles of the Pacific; from 
many and many a lonely missionary station had they 
been sent us. Even as our collection grew, the library 
covering it grew with it. But this was merely the most 
showy and pleasing part of the work. That which had 
the greatest scientific worth and interest, that upon 
which John Flint’s value and reputation were steadily 
mounting, was in less lovely and more destructive forms 
of insect life. Beside this last, a labor calling for the 
most unremitting, painstaking, persevering research, 
observation, and intelligence, the painted beauties of his 
butterflies were but as precious play. For in this last 
he was wringing from Nature’s reluctant fingers some 
of her dearest and most deeply hidden secrets. He was 
like Jacob, wrestling all night long with an unknown 
angel, saying sturdily: 

4 ‘I will not let thee go except thou tell me thy name!” 
Like Jacob, he paid the price of going halt for his 
knowledge. 

I like to think that Hunter understood the enormous 
value of the naturalist’s work. But I fancy the silent 
and absorbed student himself was to his mind the most 
interesting specimen, the most valuable study. It 
amused him to try to draw his reticent host into familiar 
and intimate conversation. Flint was even as his name. 

Oddly enough, Hunter shared the Butterfly Man’s lik¬ 
ing for that unspeakable Book of Obituaries, and I have 
seen him take a batch of them from his pocket as a 
free-will offering. I have seen him, who had all French, 
Russian and English literature at his fingers’ ends, sit 
chuckling and absorbed for an hour over that fearful 


THE BLUEJAY 


183 


collection of lugubrious verse and worse grammar; paus¬ 
ing every now and then to cast a speculative and curious 
glance at his impassive host, who, paying absolutely no 
attention to him, bent his whole mind, instead, upon 
some tiny form in a balsam slide mount under his 
microscope. 

“Why don’t you admire Mr. Hunter?” I was curi¬ 
ous to know. 

“But I do admire him.” Flint was sincere. 

“Then if you admire him, why don’t you like him?” 

He reflected. 

“I don’t like the expression of his teeth,” he admitted. 
“They ’re too pointed. He looks like he’d bite. I don’t 
think he’d care much who he bit, either; it would all de¬ 
pend on who got in his way.” 

Seeing me look at him wonderingly, he paused in his 
work, stretched his legs under the table, and grinned 
up at me. 

“I’m not saying he oughtn’t to put his best foot 
foremost,” he agreed. “We’d all do that, if we only 
knew how. And I’m not saying he ought to tell on 
himself, or that anybody’s got any business getting under 
his guard. I don’t hanker to know anybody’s faults, 
or to find out what they’ve got up their sleeves besides 
their elbows, unless I have to. Why, I’d as soon ask 
a fellow to take off his patent leathers to prove he had n’t 
got bunions, or to unbutton his collar, so I’d be sure it 
wasn’t fastened onto a wart on the back of his neck. 
Personally I don’t want to air anybody’s bumps and 
bunions. It’s none of my business. I believe in collars 
and shoes, myself. But if I see signs, I can believe all 
by my lonesome they’ve got ’em, can’t I ? ” 


184 


SLIPPY McGEE 


“Exactly. Your deductions, my dear Sherlock, are 
really marvelous. A gentleman wears good shoes and 
clean collars—wherefore, you don’t like the expression of 
his teeth!” said I, ironically. 

“Slap me on the wrist some more, if it makes you feel 
good,” he offered brazenly. “For he may—and I sure 
don’t.” His grin faded, the old pucker came to his 
forehead. 

“Parson, maybe the truth is I’m not crazy over him 
because people like him get people like me to seeing too 
plainly that things are n’t fairly dealt out. Why, think 
a minute. That man ’s got about all a man can have, 
hasn’t he? In himself, I mean. And if there’s any¬ 
thing more he fancies, he can reach out and get it, can’t 
he? Well, then, some folks might get to thinking that 
folks like him—get more than they deserve. And some 
. . . don’t get any more than they deserve,” he finished, 
with grim ambiguity. 

11 Do you like him yourself ? ” he demanded, as I made 
no reply. 

“I admire him immensely.” 

“Does Madame like him?” he came back. 

“Madame is a woman,” I said, cautiously. “Also, 
you are to remember that if Madame does n’t, she is only 
one against many. All the rest of them seem to adore 
him. ’ ’ 

“Oh, the rest of them!” grunted John Flint, and 
scowled. “Huh! If it wasn’t for Madame and a few 
more like her, I’d say women and hens are the two 
plum-foolest things God has found time to make yet. If 
you don’t believe it, watch them stand around and cackle 
over the first big dunghill rooster that walks on his 


THE BLUEJAY 


185 


■wings before them! There are times when I could wring 
their necks. Dern a fool, anyhow! ’ ’ He wriggled in 
his chair with impatience. 

“Liver,” said I, outraged. “You’d better see Dr. 
Westmoreland about it. When a man talks like you ’re 
talking now, it’s just one of two things—a liver out of 
whack, or plain ugly jealousy.” 

“I do sound like 1 ’ve got a grouch, don’t I?” he ad¬ 
mitted, without shame. “Well . . . maybe it’s jeal¬ 
ousy, and maybe it’s not. The truth is, he rubs me 
rather raw at times, I don’t know just how or why. 
Maybe it’s because he’s so sure of himself. He can 
afford to be sure. There isn’t any reason why he 
shouldn’t be. And it hurts my feelings.” He looked 
up at me, shrewdly. ‘ ‘ He looks all right, and he sounds 
all right, and maybe he might be all right—but, parson, 
1 ’ve got the notion that somehow he’s not! ’ ’ 

“Good heavens! Why, look at what the man has done 
for the mill folks! Whatever his motives are, the re¬ 
sult is right there, isn’t it? His works praise him in 
the gates! ’ ’ 

“Oh, sure! But he hasn’t played his full hand out 
yet, friend. You just give him time. His sort don’t 
play to lose; they can’t afford to lose; losing is the other 
fellow’s job. Parson, see here: there are two sides to all 
things; one of ’em’s right and the other’s wrong, and 
a man’s got to choose between ’em. He can’t help it. 
He’s got to be on one side or the other, if he’s a man. 
A neutral is a squashy It that both sides do right to 
kick out of the way. Now you can’t do the right side 
any good if you ’re standing flatfooted on the wrong 
side, can you ? No; you take sides according to what’s 


186 


SLIPPY McGEE 


in you. You know good and well one side is full of 
near-poors, and half-ways, and real-poors—the downand- 
outers, the guys that never had a show, ditchers and 
sewercleaners and sweatshoppers and mill hands and 
shuckers, and overdriven mutts and starved women and 
kids. It’s sure one hell of a road, but there ’s got to be 
a light somewhere about it or the best of the whole world 
wouldn’t take to it for choice, would they? Yet they 
do! Like Jesus Christ, say. They turn down the other 
side cold, though it ’s nicer traveling. Why, you can hog 
that other road in an auto, you can run down the beggars 
and the kids, you can even shoot up the cops that want 
to make you keep the speed laws. You have n’t got any 
speed laws there. It’s your road. You own it, see? 
It’s what it is because you ’ve made it so, just to please 
yourself, and to hell with the hicks that have to leg it! 
But—you lose out on that side even when you think 
you’ve won. You get exactly what you go after, but 
you don’t get any more, and so you lose out. Why? 
Because you ’re an egg-sucker and a nest-robber 
and a shrike, and a four-flusher and a piker, that’s 
why! 

“The first road don’t give you anything you can put 
your hands on; except that you think and hope maybe 
there’s that light at the end of it. But, parson, I guess 
if you We man enough to foot it without a pay-envelope 
coming in on Saturdays, why, it’s plenty good enough 
for me —and Kerry. But while I’m legging it I ’ll keep 
a weather eye peeled for crooks. That big blonde he- 
god is one of ’em. You soak that in your thinking-tank: 
he’s one of ’em! ’ ’ 

“But look at what he’s doing!” said I, aghast. 


THE BLUEJAY 187 

“What he’s doing is good. Even Laurence could n’t ask 
for more than good results, could he ? ” 

The Butterfly Man smiled. 

“Don’t get stung, parson. Why, you take me, my¬ 
self. Suppose, parson, you’d been on the other side, 
like Hunter is, when I came along? Suppose you’d 
never stopped a minute, since you .were born, to think 
of anything or anybody but yourself and your own 
interests—where would I be to-day, parson? Sup¬ 
pose you had the utility-and-nothing-but-business bug 
biting you, like that skate’s got? Why, what do you 
suppose you’d have done with little old Slippy? I was 
considerable good business to look at then, wasn’t I? 
No. You’ve got to have something in you that will let 
you take gambler’s chances; you’ve got to be willing to 
bet the limit and risk your whole kitty on the one little 
chance that a man will come out right, if you give him a 
fair show, just because he is a man; or you can’t ever 
hope to help just when that help’s needed. Right 
there is the difference between the Laurence-and-you sort 
and the Hunter-men,” said John Flint, obstinately. 

As for Laurence, he and Hunter met continually, both 
being in constant social demand. If Laurence did not 
naturally gravitate toward that bright particular set of 
rather rapid young people which presently formed itself 
about the brilliant figure of Hunter, the two did not dis¬ 
like each other, though Hunter, from an older man’s 
sureness of himself, was the more cordial of the two. I 
fancy each watched the other more guardedly than either 
would like to admit. They represented opposite inter¬ 
ests; one might at any moment become inimical to the 
other. Of this, however, no faintest trace was allowed 


188 


SLIPPY McGEE 


to appear upon the calm unruffled surface of things. 

If Inglesby had chosen this man by design, it had been 
a wise choice. For he was undoubtedly very popular, 
and quite deservedly so. He had unassailable connec¬ 
tions, as we all knew. He brought a broader culture, 
which was not without its effect. And in spite of the 
fact that he represented Inglesby, there was not a door 
in Appleboro that was not open to him. Inglesby him¬ 
self seemed a less sinister figure in the light of this 
younger and dazzling personality. Thus the secretary 
gradually removed the thorns and briars of doubts 
and prejudices, sowing in their stead the seeds of 
Inglesby’s ambition and rehabilitation, in the open light 
of day. He knew his work was well done; he was 
sure of ultimate success; he had always been suc¬ 
cessful, and there had been, heretofore, no one strong 
enough to actively oppose him. He could therefore 
afford to make haste slowly. Even had he been aware 
of the Butterfly Man’s acrid estimate of him, it must 
have amused him. When all was said and done, what 
did a Butterfly Man—even such a one as ours—amount 
to, in the world of Big Business? He had n’t stocks nor 
bonds nor power nor pull. He had n’t anything but a 
personality that arrested you, a setter dog, a slowly- 
growing name, a room full of insects in an old priest’s 
garden. Of course Hunter would have smiled! And 
there wasn’t a soul to tell him anything of Slippy 
McGee! 


CHAPTER XI 


A LITTLE GIRL GROWN UP 

S UMMER stole out a-tiptoe, and October had come 
among the live-oaks and the pines, and touched 
the wide marshes and made them brown, and laid 
her hand upon the barrens and the cypress swamps and 
set them aflame with scarlet and gold. October is 
not sere and sorrowful with us, but a ruddy and deep- 
bosomed lass, a royal and free-hearted spender and giver 
of gifts. Asters of imperial purple, golden rod fit for 
kings’ scepters, march along with her in ever thinning 
ranks; the great bindweed covers fences and clambers up 
dying cornstalks; and in many a covert and beside the 
open ditches the Gerardia swings her pink and airy 
bells. All down the brown roads white lady’s-lace and 
yarrow and the stiff purple iron-weed have leaped into 
bloom; under its faded green coat the sugar-cane shows 
purple; and sumac and sassafras and gums are afire. 
The year’s last burgeoning of butterflies riots, a tangle 
of rainbow coloring, dancing in the mellow sunshine. 
And day by day a fine still deepening haze descends veil¬ 
like over the landscape and wraps it in a vague melan¬ 
choly which most sweetly invades the spirit. It is as if 
one waits for a poignant thing which must happen. 

Upon such a perfect afternoon, I, reading my worn 
old breviary under our great magnolia, heard of a sud- 
189 


190 


SLIPPY McGEE 


den a voice of pure gold call me, very softly, by my 
name; and looking up met eyes of almost unbelievable 
blue, and the smile of a mouth splendidly young and red. 

I suppose the tall girl standing before me was fash¬ 
ionably and expensively clad; heaven knows I don’t 
know what she wore, but I do know that whatever it was 
it became her wonderfully; and although it seemed to me 
very simple, and just what such a girl ought to wear, my 
mother says you could tell half a mile away that those 
clothes smacked of super-tailoring at its costliest. Hat 
and gloves she held in her slim white ringless hand. One 
thus saw her waving hair, framing her warm pale face in 
living ebony. 

“Padre!” said she. “Oh, dear, dear, Padre!” and 
down she dropped lightly beside me, and cradled her 
knees in her arms, and looked up, with an arch and ten¬ 
der friendliness. That childish action, that upward 
glance, brought back the darling child I had so greatly 
loved. This was no Queen-of-Sheba, as John Flint had 
thought. This was not the regal young beauty whose 
photograph graced front pages. This was my own girl 
come back. And I knew I had n’t lost Mary Virginia. 

“I remembered this place, and I knew—I just knew 
in my heart—you ’cl be sitting here, with your breviary 
in your hand. I knew just how you’d be looking up, 
every now and then, smiling at things because they ’re 
lovely and you love them. So I stole around by the back 
gate—and there you were! ’ ’ said she, her eyes searching 
me. “Padre, Padre, how more than good to see you 
again! And I’m sure that’s the same cassock I left you 
wearing. You could wear it a couple of lifetimes without 
getting a single spot on it—you were always such a de- 


A LITTLE GIRL GROWN UP 


191 


lightful old maid, Padre! Where and how is Madame ? 
Who's in the Guest Rooms? How is John Flint since 
he's come to be a Notable? Has Miss Sally Ruth still 
got a Figure? How are the judge's cats, and the 
major's goatee? How is everything and everybody?" 

“Did you know you'd have to make room for me, 
Padre? Well, you will. I picked up and fairly ran 
away from everything and everybody, because the long¬ 
ing for home grew upon me intolerably. When I was 
in Europe, and I used to think that three thousand miles 
of water lay between me and Appleboro, I used to cry 
at nights. I hope John Flint's butterflies told him what 
I told them to tell him for me, when they came by! 
How beautiful the old place looks! Padre, you 're thin. 
Why will you work so hard? Why doesn’t somebody 
stop you? And—you 're gray, but how perfectly beau¬ 
tiful gray hair is, and how thick and wavy yours is, too! 
Gray hair was invented and intended for folks with 
French blood and names. Nobody else can wear it half 
so gracefully. Now tell me first of all you 're glad as 
glad can be to see me, Padre. Say you have n’t forgotten 
me—and then you can tell me everything else! ’' 

She paused, fanned herself with her hat, and laughed, 
looking up at me with her blue, blue eyes that were so 
heavily fringed with black. 

I was so startled by her sudden appearance—as if she 
had walked out of my prayers, like an angel; and, above 
all, by that resemblance to the one long since dust and 
unremembered of all men's hearts save mine, that I 
could hardly bear to look upon her. That other one 
seemed to have stepped delicately out of her untimely 
grave; to sit once more beside me, and thus to look at 


192 


SLIPPY McGEE 


me once more with unforgotten eyes. Thou knowest, my 
God, before whom all hearts are bare, that I could not 
have loved thee so singly nor served thee without faint¬ 
ing, all these years, if for one faithless moment I could 
have forgotten her! 

My mother came out of the house with a garden hat 
tied over her white hair, and big garden gloves on her 
hands. At sight of the girl she uttered a joyful shriek, 
flung scissors and trowel and basket aside, and rushed 
forward. With catlike quickness the girl leaped to her 
feet and the two met and fell into each other’s arms. I 
wished when I saw the little woman’s arms close so about 
the girl, and the look that flashed into her face, that 
heaven had granted her a daughter. 

“Mother complained that I should at least have the 
decency to wire you I was coming—she said I was be¬ 
having like a child. But I wanted to walk in unan¬ 
nounced. I was so sure, you see, that there’d be wel¬ 
come and room for me at the Parish House.” 

“The little room you used to like so much is waiting 
for you,” said my mother, happily. 

“Next to yours, all in blue and white, with the Ma¬ 
donna of the Chair over the mantelpiece and the two 
china shepherdesses under her?” 

‘ ‘ Then you shall see the new baby in the bigger Guest 
Room, and the crippled Polish child in the small one,” 
said my mother. “The baby’s name is Smelka Zura- 
wawski, but she’s all the better for it—I never saw a 
nicer baby. And the little boy is so patient and so in¬ 
telligent, and so pretty! Dr. Westmoreland thinks he 
can be cured, and we hope to be able to send him on to 
Johns Hopkins, after we’ve got him in good shape. 


A LITTLE GIRL GROWN UP 


193 


Where is your luggage? How long may we keep you? 
But first of all you shall have tea and some of Clelie’s 
cakes. Clelie has grown horribly vain of her cakes. 
She expects to make them in heaven some of these days, 
for the most exclusive of the cherubim and seraphim, 
and the lordliest of the principalities and powers.’’ 

Mary Virginia smiled at the pleased old servant. 
“I ’ve half a dozen gorgeous Madras head-handkerchiefs 
for you, Clelie, and a perfect duck of a black frock which 
you are positively to make up and wear now—you are 
not to save it up to be buried fin!” 

4 ‘No’m, Miss Mary Virginia. I won’t get buried in 
it. I ’ll maybe get married in it,” said Clelie calmly. 

“Married! Clelie!” said my mother, in consterna¬ 
tion. ‘ ‘ Do you mean to tell me you ’re planning to leave 
me, at this time of our lives?” 

Clelie was indignant. “You think I have no mo’ sense 
than to leave you and M’sieu Armand, for some strange 
nigger? Not me!” 

“Who are you going to marry, Clelie?” Mary Vir¬ 
ginia was delighted. “And hadn’t you better let me 
give you another frock? Black is hardly appropriate 
for a bride.” 

“I’m not exactly set in my mind who he’s going to 
be yet, Miss Mary Virginia, but he’s got to be somebody 
or other. There’s been lots after me, since it got out 
I’m such a grand cook and save my wages. But I’ve 
got a sort of taste for Daddy January. He’s old, but 
he’s lively. He’s a real ambitious old man like that. 
Besides, I’m sure of his family,—I always did like Judge 
Mayne and Mister Laurence, and I do like ’ristocratic 
connections, Miss Mary Virginia. That big nigger that 


m 


SLIPPY McGEE 


drives one of the mill trucks had the impudence to tell 
me he’d give me a church wedding and pay for it him¬ 
self, but I told him I was raised a Catholic; and what 
you think he said? He said, ‘Oh, well, you ’ve been 
christened in the face already. We can dip the rest of 
you easy enough, and then you ’ll be a real Christian, 
like me!’ I’d just scalded my chickens and was picking 
them, and I was that mad I upped and let him have that 
dish pan full of hot water and wet feathers in his face. 
‘There,’ says I, ‘you ’re christened in the face now your¬ 
self,’ I says. ‘You can go and dip the rest of yourself,’ 
says I, ‘but see you do it somewhere else besides my 
kitchen,’ I says. I don’t think he’s crazy to marry me 
any more, and Daddy January’s sort of soothing to 
my feelings, besides being close to hand. Yes’m, I guess 
you’d better give me the black dress, Miss Mary Vir¬ 
ginia, if you don’t mind: it’d come in awful handy if 
I had to go in mourning.” 

“The black dress it shall be,” said Mary Virginia, 
gaily. She turned to my mother. “And what do you 
think, p’tite Madame? I’ve a rare butterfly for John 
Flint, that an English duke gave me for him! The 
duke is a collector, too, and he’d gotten some specimens 
from John Flint. The minute he learned I was from 
Appleboro he asked me all about him. He said nobody 
else under the sky can ‘do’ insects so perfectly, and that 
nobody except the Lord and old Henri Fabre knew as 
much about certain of them as John Flint does. Folks 
thought the duke was taken up with me, of course, and 
I was no end conceited! I hadn’t the ghost of an idea 
you and John Flint were such astonishingly learned 
folks, Padre! But of course if a duke thought so, I 


A LITTLE GIRL GROWN UP 


195 


knew I’d better think so, too—and so I did and do! 
Think of a duke knowing about folks in little Apple- 
boro ! And he was such a nice old man, too. Not a 
bit dukey, after you knew him!" 

“We come in touch with collectors everywhere,’’ I 
explained. 

“And so John Flint has written some sort of a book, 
describing the whole life history of something or other, 
and you’ve done all the drawings! Is n’t it lovely ? 
Why, it sounds like something out of a pleasant book. 
Mayn't I see collector and collection in the morning? 
And oh, where’s Kerry?" 

“Kerry," said my mother gravely, “is a most im¬ 
portant personage. He’s John Flint’s bodyguard. He 
doesn’t actually sleep in his master’s bed, because he 
has one of his own right next it. Clelie was horrified at 
first. She said they’d be eating together next, but the 
Butterfly Man reminded her that Kerry likes dog-biscuit 
and he doesn’t. I figure that in the order of his affec¬ 
tions the Butterfly Man ranks Kerry first, Armand and 
myself next, and Laurence a close third." 

“Oh, Laurence," said Mary Virginia. “I ’ll be so 
glad to see Laurence again, if only to quarrel with him. 
Is he just as logical as ever? Has he given the sun a 
black eye with his sling-shot? My father’s always 
praising Laurence in his letters." 

Now my mother adores Laurence. She patterns upon 
this model every young man she meets, and if they are 
not Laurence-sized she does not include them in her good 
graces. But she seldom lifts her voice in praise of her 
favorite. She is far, far too wise. 

“Laurence generally looks in upon us during the eve- 


196 


SLIPPY McGEE 


ning, if he is not too busy,” she said, non-committally. 
“You see, people are beginning to find out what a really 
fine lawyer Laurence is, so cases are coming to him 
steadily. ’ ’ 

The trunks had arrived, and Mary Virginia changed 
into white, in which she glowed and sparkled like 
a fire opal. We three dined together, and as she 
became more and more animated, a pink flush stole into 
her rather pale cheeks and her eyes deepened and dark¬ 
ened. She was vividly alive. One could see why Mary 
Virginia was classed as a great beauty, although, strictly 
speaking, she was no such thing. But she had that com¬ 
pelling charm which one simply cannot express in words. 
It was there, and you felt it. She did not take your 
heart by storm, willynilly. You watched her, and pres¬ 
ently you gave her your heart willingly, delighted that 
a creature so lovely and so unaffected and worth loving 
had crossed your path. 

She chatted with my mother about that world which 
the older woman had once graced, and my mother 
listened without a shade to darken her smooth forehead. 
But I do not think I ever so keenly appreciated the 
many sacrifices she had made for me, until that 
night. 

The autumn evening had grown chilly, and we had 
a fire in the clean-swept fireplace. The old brass dogs 
sparkled in the blaze, and the shadows flickered and 
danced on the walls, and across the faces of De Ranee 
portraits; the pleasant room was full of a ruddy, friendly 
glow. My mother sat in her low rocker, making some¬ 
thing or other out of pink and white wools for the baby 
upstairs. Mary Virginia, at the old square piano, sang 


A LITTLE GIRL GROWN UP 197 

for us. She had a charming voice, carefully cultivated 
and sweet, and she played with great feeling. 

Kerry barked at the gate, as he always does when home 
is reached. My mother, dropping her work, ran to the 
window which gives upon the garden, and called. A 
moment later the Butterfly Man, with Laurence just 
back of him, and Kerry squeezing in between them, stood 
in the door. Mary Virginia, lips parted, eyes alight, 
hands outstretched, arose. The light of the whole room 
seemed not so much to gather upon her, as to radiate 
from her. 

The dog reached her first. Outdoor exercise, careful 
diet, perfect grooming, had kept Kerry in fine shape. 
His age told only in an added dignity, a slower move¬ 
ment. 

The girl went down on her knees, and hugged him. 
Pitache, aroused by Kerry’s unwonted demonstrations, 
circled about them, rushing in every now and then to 
bestow an indiscriminate lick. 

“Why, it’s Mary Virginia!” exclaimed Laurence, and 
helped her to her feet. The two regarded each other, 
mutually appraising. He towered above her, head and 
shoulders, and I thought with great satisfaction that, go 
where she would, she could nowhere find a likelier man 
than this same Laurence of ours. Like David in his 
youth, he was ruddy and of a beautiful countenance. 

“Why, Laurence! What a Jack-the-Giant-killer! 
Mercy, how big the boy’s grown! ’ ’ 

“Why, Mary Virginia! What a heart-smasher! 
Mercy, how pretty* the girl’s grown! ’’ he came back, 
holding her hand and looking down at her with equally 
frank delight. “When I remember the pigtailed, leggy, 


198 


SLIPPY McGEE 


tonguey minx that used to fetch me clumps over the head 
—and then regard this beatific vision—I’m afraid I ’ll 
wake up and you ’ll be gone!” 

“If you ’ll kindly give me back my hand, I might be 
induced to fetch you another clump or two, just to prove 
my reality,” she suggested, with a delightful hint of the 
old truculence. 

“ ’T is she! This is indeed none other than our long- 
lost child!” burbled Laurence. “Lordy, I wish I could 
tell her how more than good it is to see her again—and 
to see her as she is! ” 

Now all this time John Flint had stood in the door¬ 
way; and when my mother beckoned him forward, he 
came, I fancied, a bit unwillingly. His limp was for 
once painfully apparent, and whether from the day¬ 
long tramp, or from some slight indisposition, he was 
very pale; it showed under his deep tan. 

But I was proud of him. His manner had a pleasant 
shyness, which was a tribute to the young girl’s beauty. 
It had as well a simple dignity. And one was impressed 
by the fine and powerful physique of him, so lean and 
springy, so boyishly slim about the hips and waist, so 
deeply stamped with clean living of days in the open, 
of nights under the stars. The features had thinned and 
sharpened, and his red beard became him; the hair thin¬ 
ning on the temples increased the breadth of the fore¬ 
lead, and behind his glasses the piercing blue eyes— 
something like an eagle’s eyes—were clear, direct, and 
kind. He wore his clothes well, with a sort of careless 
carefulness, more like an Englishman than an American, 
who is always welldressed, but rather gives the impres¬ 
sion of being conscious of it. 


A LITTLE GIRL GROWN UP 


199 


Mary Virginia’s lips parted, her eyes widened, for a 
fraction of a second. But if, remembering him as she 
had first seen and known him, she was astonished to find 
him as he was now, she gave no further outward sign. 
Instead, she gave him her hand as to an equal, and in 
a few gracious words let him know that she knew and 
was proud of what he had done and what he was yet 
to do. She repeated, too, with a pretty air of personal 
triumph, the old nobleman’s praise. Indeed, it had been 
he who had told her of the book, which he had lately 
purchased and studied, she said. And oh, hadn’t she 
just swelled with pride! She had been that conceited! 

“You don’t know how much obliged to you I should 
be, for if he hadn’t accidentally learned I was from 
Appleboro, the town in which dwelt his most greatly 
prized correspondent—that’s what he said, Mr. Flint! 
—why, I’m sure he would n’t have noticed me any more 
than he noticed any other girl—which is, not at all; he 
being a toplofty and serious Personage addicted to peo¬ 
ple who do things and write things, particularly things 
about things that crawl and fly. And if he hadn’t 
noticed me so pointedly—he actually came to see us!— 
why, I shouldn’t have had such a perfectly gorgeous 
time. It was a great feather in my cap,” she crowed. 
“Everybody envied me desperately!” She managed to 
make us understand that this was really a compliment to 
the Butterfly Man, not to herself. 

“If the little book served you for one minute it was 
well worth the four years it took me to gather the ma¬ 
terials together and write it,” said he, pleasantly. And 
even the courtly Hunter couldn’t have said it with a 
manlier grace. 


200 


SLIPPY McGEE 


“Mary Virginia,” said Laurence slyly, “when you ’ve 
had your fill of bugs, make him show you the Book of 
Obituaries. He thereby stands revealed in his true col¬ 
ors. Why, he made me buy the old Clarion and hire 
Jim Dabney to run it, so his supply of mortuary gems 
shouldn’t be cut off untimely. To-day he culled this 
one: 

Phileola dear, we cry because thou hast gone and left us, 

But well we know it is a merciful heaven which has bereft us. 
We tried five doctors and everything else we knew of you to save. 
But alas, nothing did you any good, and to-day you are in your 
grave! 

He’s got it in his pocket now. Dabney calls him Mister 
Bones,” grinned Laurence. 

My mother looked profoundly uncomfortable. The 
Butterfly Man reddened guiltily under her reproachful 
glance, but Mary Virginia giggled irrepressibly. 

“I choose the Book of Obituaries first!” said she 
promptly, with dancing eyes. Flint drew a breath of 
relief. 

He sat by silently enough, while Laurence and Madame 
and Mary Virginia talked of everything under heaven. 
His whole manner was that of an amused, tolerant, sym¬ 
pathetic listener—a manner which spurs conversation to 
its happiest and best. Not for nothing had Major Cart¬ 
wright called him the most discriminatin’ listener in 
Carolina. 

“Oh, by the way, Flint! Hunter came by this morn¬ 
ing to see Dabney. He is going to give a series of Plain 
Talks to Workingmen this winter, and of course he 
wants the Clarion to cover them. What do you think, 
Padre?” 




A LITTLE GIRL GROWN UP 201 

“I think they will be eminently sensible talks and well 
worth listening to, ’’ said I promptly. 

The Butterfly Man smiled crookedly, and shot me a 
freighted glance. 

“Of course/’ said Laurence, easily. “Where’s your 
father these days, Mary Virginia?” 

“He was at the plantation this morning, but he ’ll be 
here to-morrow, because I wired him to come. I Ve just 
got to have him for awhile, business or no business.” 

“You did me a favor, then. I want to see him, too.” 

“Anything very particular?” 

“Politics.” 

“How silly! You know very well he never meddles 
with politics, thank goodness! He thinks he has some¬ 
thing better to do.” 

“That’s just what I want to see him about,” said 
Laurence. 

“You mentioned a—a Mr. Hunter.” Mary Virginia 
spoke after a short pause. “This is the first time I Ve 
heard of any Mr. Hunter in Appleboro. Who is Mr. 
Hunter ? ’ ’ 

“Inglesby’s right-bower, and the king-card of the 
pack,” said Laurence promptly. 

“One of them which set up golden images in high 
places and make all Israel for to sin,” said my mother. 
“That’s what Howard Hunter is!” 

“Oh, . . . Howard Hunter!” said she. “What sort 
of a person may he be ? And what is he doing here in 
Appleboro?” 

We told her according to our lights. Only the Butter¬ 
fly Man sat silent and imperturbable. 

“And you T1 meet him everywhere,” finished my 


202 


SLIPPY McGEE 


mother. “He ’s everything a man should be to the 
naked eye, and I sincerely hope,” she added piously, 
“that you won’t like him at all.” 

Mary Virginia leaned back in her chair, and glanced 
thoughtfully down at the slim ringless hands clasped in 
her white lap. 

“No,” said she, as if to herself. “There couldn’t 
by any chance be two such men in this one world. That 
is he, himself.” And she lifted her head, and glanced 
at my mother, with a level and proud look. “I think I 
have met this Mr. Hunter,” said she, smiling curiously. 
“And if that is true, your hope is realized, p’tite Ma¬ 
dame. I shan’t.” 


CHAPTER XII 


JOHN FLINT, GENTLEMAN 

A LMOST up to Christmas the weather had been 
so mild and warm that folks lived out of doors. 
Girls clothed like the angels in white raiment 
fluttered about and blessed the old streets with their 
fresh and rosy faces. In the bright sunshine the flowers 
seemed to have lost all thought of winter; they forgot 
to fade; and roses rioted in every garden as if it were 
still summer. Nobody but the Butterfly Man grumbled 
at this springlike balminess, and he only because he was 
impatient to resume experiments carried over from year 
to year—the effect of varying degrees of natural cold 
upon the colors of butterflies whose chrysalids were ex¬ 
posed to it. He generally used the chrysalids of the 
Papilio Turnus, whose females are dimorphic, that is, 
having two distinct forms. He did not care to resort to 
artificial freezing, preferring to allow Nature herself to 
work for him. And the jade repaid him, as usual, by 
showing him what she could do but refusing to divulge 
the moving why she did it. She gave him for his pains 
sometimes a light, and sometimes a dark butterfly, with 
different degrees of blurred or enlarged and vivid mark¬ 
ings, from chrysalids subjected to exactly the same 
amount of exposure. 

The Butterfly Man was burning to complete his notes, 
2Q3 


204 


SLIPPY McGEE 


already assuming the proportions of that very exact and 
valuable book they were afterward to become. He 
chafed at the enforced delay, and wished himself at the 
North Pole. 

In the meantime, having nothing else on hand just 
then, it occurred to him to put some of these notes, cover¬ 
ing the most interesting and curious of the experiments, 
into papers which the general run of folks might like to 
read. Dabney had been after him for some time to do 
some such work as this for the Clarion. 

I think Flint himself was genuinely surprised when 
he read over those enchanting papers, though he did not 
then and never has learned to appreciate their unique 
charm and value. Instead, however, of sending them to 
Dabney, he thought they might possibly interest a some¬ 
what wider public, and with great diffidence, and some 
misgivings, he sent one or two of them to certain of the 
better known magazines. They did not come back. He 
received checks instead, and a request for more. 

Now the book and the several monographs he had 
already gotten out had been, although very interesting, 
strictly scientific; they could appeal only to students 
and scholars. But these papers were entirely different. 
Scientific enough, very clear and lucid and most 
quaintly flavored with what Laurence called Flintish- 
ness, they were so well received, and the response 
of the reading public to this fresh and new presentment 
of an ever-fascinating subject was so immediate and so 
hearty, that the Butterfly Man found himself unexpect¬ 
edly confronting a demand he was hard put to it to 
supply. 

He was very much more modest about this achieve- 


JOHN FLINT, GENTLEMAN 205 

ment than we were. My mother’s pride was delicious to 
witness. You see, it also invested me with a very far¬ 
sighted wisdom! Here was it proven to all that Father 
De Ranee had been right in holding fast to the man who 
had come to him in such sorry plight. 

I suppose it Wu,i liiis which moved Madame to take 
the step she had long been contemplating. Knowing her 
Butterfly Man, she began with infinite wile. 

“Armand,” said she, one bright morning in early 
November, tc I am going to entertain, too—everybody 
else has done so, and now it’s my turn. The weather 
is so ideal, and my garden so gorgeous with all those 
chrysanthemums and salvias and geraniums and roses, 
that it would be sinful not to take advantage of such 
conditions. 

“I have saved enough out of my house-money to meet 
the expenses—and I am not going to be charitable and 
do my Christian duty with that money! I’m going to 
entertain. I really owe that much attention to Mary 
Virginia.” She laid her hand on my arm. “I must see 
John Flint; go over to his rooms, and bring him back 
with you.” 

I thought she merely needed his help and counsel, for 
she is always consulting him; she considers that whatever 
barque is steered by John Flint must needs come home 
to harbor. He obeyed her summons with alacrity, for 
it delights him to assist Madame. He did not know 
what fate overshadowed him! 

My mother sat in her low rocker, a lace apron lending 
piquancy to her appearance. She looked unusually 
pretty—there wasn’t a girl in Appleboro who didn’t 
envy Madame De Ranee’s complexion. 


206 


SLIPPY McGEE 


“Well,” said the Butterfly Man cheerfully, uncon¬ 
sciously falling under the spell of this feminine charm, 
“the Padre tells me there’s a party in the wind. 
Good! Now what am I to do? How am I to help you 
out ? ’ 9 

My mother leaned forward and compelled him to meet 
direct her eyes that were friendly and clear and candid 
as a child’s. 

“Mr. Flint,” said she artlessly, ignoring his questions, 
“Mr. Flint, you’ve been with Armand and me quite a 
long time now, have you not ? ’ ’ 

“A couple of lifetimes,” said he, wonderingly. 

“A couple of lifetimes,” she mused, still holding his 
eyes, “is a fairly long time. Long enough, at least, to 
know and to be known, should n’t you think ? ’ ’ 

He awaited enlightenment. He never asks unneces¬ 
sary questions. 

“I am going,” said my mother, with apparent 
irrelevance, “to entertain in honor of Mary Virginia 
Eustis. I shall probably have all Appleboro here. I 
sent for you to explain that you and Armand are to be 
present, too.” 

The Butterfly Man almost fell out of his chair. 

“Me?” he gasped. 

“You,” with deadly softness. “You.” 

Horror and anguish encompassed him. Perspiration 
appeared on his forehead, and he gripped the arms of 
his chair as one bracing himself for torture. He looked 
at the little lady with the terror of one to whom the den¬ 
tist has just said: “That jaw tooth must come out at 
once. Open your mouth wider, please, so I can get a 
grip!” 


JOHN FLINT, GENTLEMAN 207 

My mother regarded this painful emotion heartlessly 
enough. She said coolly: 

“You don’t need to look as if I were sentencing you 
to be hanged before sundown. I am merely inviting you 
to be present at a very pleasant affair.” But the Butter¬ 
fly Man, with his mouth open, wagged his head feebly. 

“And this,” said my mother, turning the screw again, 
“is but the beginning. After this, I shall manage it so 
that all invitations to the Parish House include Mr. John 
Flint. There is no reason under heaven why you should 
occupy what one might call an ambiguous position. I 
am determined, too, that you shall no longer rush away 
to the woods like a scared savage, the minute more than 
one or two ladies appear. No, nor have Armand hurry¬ 
ing away as quickly as he can, either, to bury or to marry 
somebody. All feminine Appleboro shall be here at 
once, and you two shall be here at the same time! 

“John Flint, regard me: if the finest butterfly that 
ever crawled a caterpillar on this earth has the imperti¬ 
nence to fly by my garden the afternoon I’m entertain¬ 
ing for Mary Virginia, it can fly, but you shan’t. 

“Armand: nobody respects Holy Orders more than I 
do: but there isn’t anybody alive going to get born or 
baptized or married or buried, or anything else, in this 
parish, on that one afternoon. If they are selfish enough 
to do it anyhow, why, they can do it without your as¬ 
sistance. You are going to stay home with me: both of 
you.” 

“My dear mother—” 

“Good Lord! Madame—” 

“I am not to be dearmothered nor goodlorded! 
Heaven knows I ask little enough of either of you. I 


208 


SLIPPY McGEE 


am at your beck and call, every day in the year. It 
does seem to me that when I wish to be civilized, and 
return for once some of the attentions I have received 
from my friends, I might at least depend upon you two 
for one little afternoon!” Could anything be more art¬ 
fully unanswerable? 

“Oh, but Madame—” began Flint, horrified by such 
an insinuation as his unwillingness to do anything at 
any time for this adored lady. 

“Particularly,” continued my mother, inexorably, 
“when I have your best interest at heart, too, John Flint! 
Monsieur the Butterfly Man, you will please to remember 
that you are a member of my household. You are almost 
like a son to me. You are the apple of that foolish 
Armand’s eye—do not look so astounded, it is true! 
Also, you will have a great name some of these days. 
So far, so good. But—you are making the grievous 
error of shunning society, particularly the society of 
women. This is wrong; it makes for queerness, it 
evolves the ‘crank/ it spoils many an otherwise very 
nice man.” 

Flint sagged in his chair, and clasped and unclasped 
his hands, which trembled visibly. Madame regarded 
him without pity, with even a touch of scorn. 

“Yes, it is indeed high time to reclaim you!” she 
decided, with the fearsome zeal of the female reformer 
of a man. “You silly man, you! Have you no proper 
pride ? Have you absolutely no idea of your own worth ? 
Well, then, if you have n’t, I have. You shall take your 
place and play your part!” 

“But,” said Flint, and a gleam of hope irradiated his 
stricken face, “but I don’t think I’ve got the clothes to 


JOHN FLINT, GENTLEMAN 209 

wear to parties. And I really can’t afford to spend any 
more money right now, either. I spent a lot on that old 
1797 Abbot & Smith’s ‘Natural History of the Rarer 
Lepidopterous Insects of Georgia. ’ It cost like the 
dickens, although I really got it for about half what it ’s 
worth. I had to take it when I got the chance, and I’d 
be willing to wear gunny-sacking for a year to pay for 
those plates! I need them: I want them. But I don’t 
need a party. I don’t want a party! Madame, don’t, 
don’t make me go to any party!” 

“Nonsense!” said my mother. “Clothes, indeed! I 
shouldn’t worry about clothes, if I were you, John 
Flint. You came into this world knowing exactly what 
to wear and how to wear it. Why, you have an air! 
That is a very great mercy, let me tell you, and one not 
always vouchsafed to the deserving, either.” 

“I have a cage full of grubs—most awfully particular 
grubs, and they’ve got to be watched like a sick kid 
with the—with the whatever it is sick kids have, any¬ 
how. Why, if I were to leave those grubs one whole 
afternoon—” 

“You just let me see a single solitary grub have the 
temerity to hatch himself out that one afternoon, that’s 
all! They have all the rest of their nasty little lives to 
hatch out!” 

“Besides, there’s a boy lives about five miles from 
here, and he’s likely to bring me word any minute about 
something I simply have to have—” 

“I want to see that boy!” She pointed her small 
forefinger at him, with the effect of a pistol leveled at 
his head. 

“You are coming to my affair!” said she, sternly. 


210 


SLIPPY McGEE 


‘‘If you have no regard whatsoever for Mary Virginia 
and me, you shall have some for yourself; if you have 
none for yourself, then you shall have some for us!” 

This took the last puff of wind from the Butterfly 
Man’s sails. 

“All right!” he gulped, and committed himself 
irremediably. “I—I T1 be right here. You say so, and 
of course I ’ve got to! ” 

“Of course you will,” said my mother, smiling at him 
charmingly. “I knew I had only to present the matter 
in its proper light, and you’d see it at once. You are 
so sensible, John Flint. It’s such a comfort, when the 
gentlemen of one’s household are so amenable to reason, 
and so ready to stand by one!” 

Having said her say, and gotten her way—as she was 
perfectly sure she would—Madame left the gentlemen of 
her household to their own reflections and devices. 

“Parson!” The Butterfly Man seemed to come out 
of a trance. “Remember the day you made me let a 
caterpillar crawl up my hand?” 

“Yes, my son.” 

“Parson, there’s a horrible big teaparty crawling up 
my pants’ leg this minute!” 

“Just keep still,” I couldn’t help laughing at him, 
“and it will come down after awhile without biting you. 
Remember, you got used to the others in no time.” 

“Some of ’em stung like the very devil,” he reminded 
me, darkly. 

“Oh, but those were the hairy fellows. This is a 
stingless, hairless, afternoon party! It won’t hurt you 
at all!” 

“It’s walking up my pants’ leg, just the same. And 


JOHN FLINT, GENTLEMAN 211 

I’m scared of it: I’m horrible scared of it! My God! 
Me! At a jane-junket! ... all the thin ones diked out 
with doodads where the bones come through . . . stoking 
like sailors on shore leave ... all the fat ones grouchy 
about their shapes and thinking it’s their souls. . . .” 
And he broke out, in a fluttering falsetto: 

‘ ‘ ‘ Oh, Mr. Flint, do please let us see your lovely butter¬ 
flies! Aren’t they just too perfectly sweet for any¬ 
thing! I wonder why they don’t trim hats with butter¬ 
flies? Do you know all their names, you awfully clever 
man? Do they know their names, too, Mr. Flint? 
Butterflies must be so very interesting! And so dec¬ 
orative, particularly on china and house linen! How 
you have the heart to kill them, I can’t imagine. Just 
think of taking the poor mother-butterflies away from 
the dear little baby-ones! ’ . . . —and me having to stand 
there and behave like a perfect gentleman!” He looked 
at me, scowling: 

*‘Now, you look here: I can stand ’em single-file, but 
if I’m made to face ’em in squads, why, you blame no¬ 
body but yourself if I foam at the mouth and chase 
myself in a circle and snap at legs, you hear me?” 

“I hear you,” said I, coldly. “You didn’t get your 
orders from me. I think your proper place is in the 
woods. You go tell Madame what you’ve just told me 
—or should you like me to warn her that you ’re subject 
to rabies ? ’ ’ 

“For the love of Mike, parson! Have a heart! 
Haven’t I got troubles enough?” he asked bitterly. 

“You are behaving more like an unspanked brat than 
q grown man.” 

“I wasn’t weaned on teaparties,” said he, sulkily, 


212 


SLIPPY McGEE 


‘‘and it oughtn’t to be expected I can swallow ’em at 
sight without making a face and—” 

“Whining,” I finished for him. And I added, with 
a reminiscent air: “ Rule 1: Can the Squeal! ’ ’ 

He glared at me, but as I met the glare unruffled, 
his lip presently twisted into a grin of desperate humor. 
His shoulders squared. 

“All right,” said he, resignedly. And after an in¬ 
terval of dejected silence, he remarked: “I’ve sort of 
got a glimmer of how Madame feels about this. She 
generally knows what’s what, Madame does, and I 
haven’t seen her make a mistake yet. If she thinks it’s 
my turn to come on in and take a hand in any game 
she’s playing, why, I guess I’d better play up to her 
lead the best I know how . . . and trust God to slip me 
over an ace or two when I need them. You tell her she 
can depend on me not to fall down on her . . . and Miss 
Eustis.” 

“No need to tell Madame what she already knows.” 

“Huh!” With his chin in his hand and his head 
bent, he stared out over the autumn garden with eyes 
which did not see its flaming flowers. Of a sudden his 
shoulders twitched; he laughed aloud. 

“What are you laughing at?” I was startled out of 
a revery of my own. 

“Everything,” said the Butterfly Man, succinctly, and 
stood up and shook himself. “And everybody. And 
me in particular. Me! Oh, good Lord, think of Me!” 
He whistled for Kerry, and took himself off. I watched 
him walk down the street, and saw Judge Mayne’s fa¬ 
miliar greeting; and Major Cartwright stop him, and 
with his hand on the Butterfly Man’s arm, walk off with 


JOHN FLINT, GENTLEMAN 213 

liim. Major Cartwright had kept George Inglesby out 
of two coveted clubs, for all his wealth; he was stiff as 
the proverbial poker to Howard Hunter, for all that 
gentleman’s impeccable connections; he met John Flint, 
not as through a glass darkly, but face to face. 

My mother, coming out of the house with her cherished 
manuscript cookbook in her hand, looked after them 
thoughtfully: 

‘‘Yes; it is high time for that man to know his proper 
place!” 

“And does he not?” 

“Oh, I suppose so, Armand. In a man’s way, though 
—not a woman’s. It’s the woman’s way that really 
matters, you see. When women acknowledge that man 
socially—and I mean it to happen—his light won’t be 
hidden under a bushel basket. He will climb up into his 
candlestick and shine.” 

That sense of bewilderment which at times over¬ 
whelmed me when the case of John Flint pressed hard, 
overtook me now, with its ironic humor. As he him¬ 
self had expressed it, I felt myself caught by a Some¬ 
thing too big to withstand. I was afraid to do any¬ 
thing, to say anything, for or against, this launching of 
his barque upon the social sea. I felt that the affair had 
been once more lifted out of my power; that my serving 
now was but to stand and wait. 

And in the meanwhile my mother, with her own hands, 
washed and darned the priceless old lace that was her 
chiefest pride; had something done to a frock; got out 
her sacredest treasures of linen and china and silver; 
requisitioned the Mayne and the Dexter spoons as well; 
had the Parish House scoured until it glittered; did 


214 


SLIPPY McGEE 


everything to the garden but wash and iron it; spent 
momentous and odorous hours with Clelie over the mak¬ 
ing of toothsome delights; and on a golden afternoon 
gave a tea on the flower-decked verandahs and in the 
glorious garden, to which all Appleboro, in its best bib 
and tucker, came as one. And there, in the heart and 
center of it, cool, calm, correct, collected, hiding whatever 
mortal qualms he might have felt under a demeanor as 
perfect as Hunter’s own, apparently at home and at 
ease, behold the Butterfly Man! 

Everybody seemed to know him. Everybody had 
something pleasant to say to him. Folks simply ac¬ 
cepted him at sight as one of themselves. And the 
Butterfly Man accepted them quite as simply, w T ith no 
faintest trace of embarrassment. 

If Appleboro had cherished the legend that this was 
a prodigal well on his way home, that afternoon settled 
it for them into a positive fact. His manner was perfect. 
It was as if one saw the fine and beautiful grain of a 
piece of rare wood come out as the varnish that disfigured 
it was removed. Here was no veneer to scratch and 
crack at a touch, but the solid, rare thing itself. My 
mother had been right, as always. John Flint stepped 
into his proper place. Appleboro was acknowledging it 
officially. 

The garden was full of laughter and chatter and per¬ 
fumes, and women in pretty clothes, and young girls 
dainty as flowers, and the smiling faces of men. But I 
am no longer of the party age. I stole away to a favorite 
haunt of mine at the back of the garden, behind the 
spireas and the holly tree, where there is a dilapidated 
old seat we have been threatening to remove any time this 


JOHN FLINT, GENTLEMAN 215 

five years. Here, some time later, the Butterfly Man 
himself came stealthily, and seemed embarrassed to find 
the place preempted. 

“Well/’ said I, making room for him beside me, “it 
isn’t so bad after all, is it?” 

“No. I’m glad I was let in for it,” he admitted 
frankly, “though I’d hate to have to come to parties 
for a living. Still, this afternoon has nailed down a 
thought that’s been buzzing around loose in my mind 
this long time. It’s this: people aren’t anything but 
people, after all. Men and women and kids, the best and 
the worst of ’em, they ’re nothing but people, the same 
as everybody else. No, I ’ll never be scared to meet any¬ 
body, after this. 1 ’m people, too! ” 

“The same as everybody else.” 

“The same as everybody else,” he repeated, soberly. 
“Not but what there’s lots of difference between folks. 
And there are things it’s good to know, too . . . things 
that women like Madame . . . and Miss Mary Virginia 
Eustis . . . expect a man to know, if they ’re not going 
to be ashamed of him.” He thought about this awhile, 
then: 

“I tell you what, father,” he remarked, tentatively, 
“it must be a mighty fine thing to'know you’ve got the 
right address written on you, good and plain, and the 
right number of stamps, and the sender’s name some¬ 
where on a corner, to keep you from going astray or to 
the Dead Letter Office; and not to be scrawled in lead- 
pencil, and misspelt, and finger-smutched, and with a 
couple of postage-due stamps stuck on you crooked, and 
the Lord only knows who and where from.” 

“Why, yes,” said I, “that’s true, and one does well 


216 


SLIPPY McGEE 


to consider it. But the main thing, the really important 
thing, is the letter itself—what’s written inside, John 
Flint/’ 

“But what’s written inside would n’t be any the worse 
if it was written clearer and better, and the outside was 
cleaner and on nice paper? And in pen-and-ink, not 
lead-pencil scratches?” he insisted earnestly. 

“Of course not.” 

“That’s what I ’ve been thinking lately, father. 
Somehow, I always did like things to have some class to 
’em. I remember how I used to lean against the restau¬ 
rant windows when I was a kid, and watch the folks 
inside, how they dressed and acted, and the way the 
nicest of ’em handled table-tools. They were n’t swells, 
of course, and plenty of ’em made plenty of mistakes— 
I’ve seen stunts done with a common table-knife that 
had the best of the sword-swallowing gents skinned a 
mile—but I wasn’t a fool, and I learned some. Then 
when I—er—began to make real money (parson, I made 
it in wads and gobs and lumps those days!) why, I got 
me the real thing in glad rags from the real thing in 
tailors, and I used to blow a queen that’d been a swell 
herself once, to the joint where the gilt-edged bunch eat 
and show off their clothes and the rest of themselves. 
My jane looked the part to the life, I had the kale and 
the clothes and was chesty as a head-waiter, being con¬ 
siderably stuck on yours truly along about then, so we 
put it over. I had the chance to get hep to the last word 
in clothes and manners; that’s what I’d gone for, 
though I didn’t tell that to the skirt I was buying the 
eats for. And it was good business, too, for more than 
once when some precinct bonehead that pipe-dreamed 


JOHN FLINT, GENTLEMAN 217 

he was a detective was pussy-catting some cold rat-hole, 
there was me vanbibbering in the white light at the 
swellest joints in little old New York! Funny, wasn’t 
it ? And handy! And I was learning, too—learning 
things worth good money to know. I saw that the best 
sort did n’t make any noise about anything. They went 
about their business, whatever it was, easy-easy, same as 
me in my line. But, parson, though I’d got hep to the 
outside, and had sense enough to copy what I’d seen, I 
wasn’t wise to the inside difference—the things that 
make the best what it is, I mean—because I’d never been 
close enough to find out that there’s more to it than 
looks and duds and manners. It took the Parish House 
people to soak that into me. People are n’t anything but 
people—but the best are—well, different.” 

We fell silent; a happy silence, into which, as 
from another planet, there drifted light laughter, and 
sweet gay voices of girls, and the stir and rustle of many 
people moving about. On the Mayne fence the judge’s 
black Panch sat, neck outstretched, emerald eyes aslant, 
ears cocked uneasily at these unwonted noises. At a 
little distance a blue jay watched him with bright malevo¬ 
lent eyes, every now and then screaming insults at the 
whole tribe of cats, and black Panch in particular. 
Flint snapped his fingers, and Panch, with a spring, 
was off the fence and on his friend’s knees. It seemed 
to me it had only needed the sleek beastie to make 
that hour perfect;—for cats in the highest degree make 
for a sense of homely, friendly intimacy. Flint, feeling 
this, stroked the black head contentedly. Panch purred 
for the three of us. 

Into this presently broke Miss Sally Ruth Dexter, and 


218 


SLIPPY McGEE 


bore down on John Flint like a frigate with all sails 
spread. At sight of her Panch spat and fled, and took 
the happy spell with him. 

“Here you are, cuddling that old pirate of a black 
cat!” said she, briskly. “I told Madame you ’d be 
mooning about somewhere. Here’s some cocoanut cake 
for you both. Father, Madame’s been looking for you. 
Did you know,’ ’ she sank her voice to a piercing whisper, 
“that George Inglesby’s here? Well, he is! He’s 
talking to Mary Virginia Eustis, this very minute! 
They do say he’s running after Mary Virginia, and I’m 
sure I wouldn’t be surprised, for if ever a mortal man 
had the effrontery of Satan that man’s George Ingles¬ 
by! I must admit he’s improved since Mr. Hunter 
took him in hand. He’s not nearly so stout and red¬ 
faced, and he hasn’t half the jowl, though Lord knows 
he ’ll have to get rid of a few tons more of his blubber” 
(Miss Sally Ruth has a free and fetterless tongue) “if 
he wants to look human. As I say, what’s the use 
of being a millionaire if you’ve got a shape like a rain- 
barrel? I often tell myself, ‘Maybe you haven’t been 
given such a lot of this world’s goods as some, Sally 
Ruth Dexter, but you can thank your sweet Redeemer 
you’ve at least got a Figure! ’ ’ 

The Butterfly Man cast a speculative eye over her 
generous proportions. 

“Yes’m, you certainly have a whole lot to be thank¬ 
ful for,” he agreed, so wholeheartedly that Miss Sally 
Ruth laughed. 

“Get along with you, you impudent fellow!” said she, 
in high good humor. “Go and look at that old scamp 
of an Inglesby making eyes at a girl young enough to 


JOHN FLINT, GENTLEMAN 219 

be his daughter! I heard this morning that Mr. Hunter 
has orders to get him, by hook or crook, an invitation to 
anything Mary Virginia goes to. I declare, it’s scan¬ 
dalous! Come to think of it, though, I never saw any 
man yet, no matter how old or ugly or outrageous he 
might be, who didn’t really believe he stood a perfectly 
good chance to win the affections of the handsomest 
young woman alive! If you ask me, I think George 
Inglesby had better join the church and get himself ready 
to meet his God, instead of gallivanting around girls. 
If he feels he has to gallivant, why don’t he pick out 
somebody nearer his own age?” 

“Why should you make him choose mutton when he 
wants lamb?” asked the Butterfly Man, unexpectedly. 

“Because he’s an old bellwether, that’s why!” 
snapped Miss Sally Ruth, scandalized. “I wonder at 
Annabelle Eustis allowing him to come near Mary Vir¬ 
ginia, millionaire or no millionaire. I bet you James 
Eustis will have something to say, if Mary Virginia her¬ 
self doesn’t!” And she sailed off again, leaving us, as 
the saying is, with a bug in the ear. 

“Now what in the name of heaven,” I wondered, “can 
Miss Sally Ruth mean? Mary Virginia . . . Inglesby. 
. . . The thing’s sacrilegious.” 

The Butterfly Man rose abruptly. “Suppose we stroll 
about a bit?” he suggested. 

“I thought,” said my mother, when we approached 
her, “that you had disobeyed orders, and run away!” 

“We were afraid to,” said John Flint. “We knew 
you’d make us go to bed without supper.” 

“Did you know,” said my mother, hurriedly, for 
Clelie was making signs to her, “that George Inglesby is 


220 


SLIPPY McGEE 


here ? The invitation was merely perfunctory, just sent 
along with Mr. Hunter’s. I never dreamed the man 
would accept it. You can’t imagine how astonished I 
was when he presented himself!” 

A few moments later, the Butterfly Man said in a low 
voice: “Look yonder!” And turning, I saw Hunter. 
He was for the moment alone, and stood with his head 
bent slightly forward, his bright cold glance intent upon 
the two persons approaching—Mary Virginia and George 
Inglesby. His white teeth showed in a smile. I remem¬ 
bered, disagreeably, Flint’s “I don’t like the expression 
of his teeth: he looks like he’d bite.” 

Until that afternoon I had not seen the secretary for 
some time, for he had been kept unusually busy. Those 
eminently sensible talks to the mill workers had been 
well received, and were to be followed by others along 
the same line. He had done even more: he had induced 
the owners to recognize the men’s Union, and all future 
complaints and demands were to be submitted to arbi¬ 
tration. Inglesby had undoubtedly gained ground enor¬ 
mously by that move. Hunter had done well. And yet 
—catching that sharp-toothed smile, I felt my faith in 
him for the first time shaken by one of those unaccount¬ 
able uprushes of intuition which perplex and disturb. 

I knew, too, that Laurence had had several long and 
serious conferences with Eustis, and I could well imagine 
the arguments he had brought to bear, the rousing of a 
sense of duty, and of state pride. 

Eustis was obstinate. He had many interests. He 
was a very, very busy man. He did n’t want to be a Sen¬ 
ator; he wanted to be let alone to attend to his own 
business in his own way. But, insisted Laurence, when 


JOHN FLINT, GENTLEMAN 221 

a thing must be done, and you can do it in a manner 
which benefits all and injures none; when your own 
people ask you to do it for them, isn’t that your 
business ? 

A cold damning resume of Inglesby’s entire career 
made Eustis hesitate. A vivid picture of what the state 
might expect at Inglesby’s hands roused him to just 
anger. Such as this fellow represent Carolina ? Never! 
When Inglesby’s name should be put up, Eustis unwill¬ 
ingly agreed to oppose him. 

And here was Inglesby, in my garden, making himself 
agreeable to Eustis’s daughter! He was so plainly de¬ 
sirous to please her, that it troubled me, although it made 
his secretary smile. 

The Mary Virginia walking beside Inglesby was not 
the Mary Virginia we knew: this was the regal one, the 
great beauty. Her whole manner was subtly charged 
with a sort of arrogant hauteur; her fairness itself 
changed, tinged with pride as with an inward fire, until 
she glowed with a cold, jewel-like brightness, hard and 
clear. Her very skirts rustled pridefully. Her glance 
at the man beside her was insulting in its disdainful 
indifference. 

What would have saddened a nobler spirit enchanted 
Inglesby. He was dazzled by her. Her interest in what 
he was saying was coolly impersonal, the fixed habit of 
trained politeness. He could even surmise that she was 
mentally yawning behind her hand. When she looked at 
him her eyes under her level brows held a certain scorn¬ 
fulness. And this, too, delighted him. He groveled to 
it. His red face glowed with pleasure; he swelled with 
a pride very different from Mary Virginia’s. I thought 


222 


SLIPPY McGEE 


he had an upholstered look in his glossy clothes, remind¬ 
ing me unpleasantly of horsehair furniture. 

4 ‘He looks like a day coach in July,” growled the But¬ 
terfly Man in my ear, disgustedly. 

Inglesby at this moment perceived Hunter and beamed 
upon him, as well he might! Who but this priceless 
secretary had pulled the strings which set him beside 
this glorious creature, in the Parish House garden ? He 
turned to the girl, with heavy jauntiness: 

“My good right hand, Miss Eustis, I assure you!” he 
beamed. “But I am sure you two need no dissertations 
upon each other’s merits!” 

“None whatever,” said Miss Eustis, and looked over 
Mr. Hunter’s head. 

“Oh, Miss Eustis and I are really old acquaintances!” 
smiled the secretary. “We know each other very well 
indeed. ’ ’ 

Mary Virginia made no reply. Instead, she looked 
about her, indifferently enough, until her glance en¬ 
countered the Butterfly Man’s. What he saw in her’s 
I do not know. But he instantly moved toward her, and 
sw r ept me with him. 

“Father De Ranee and I,” said he, easily, “haven’t 
had chance to speak to you all afternoon, Miss Eustis.” 
He acknowledged Hunter’s friendly greeting pleasantly 
enough. 

“And I’ve been looking for you both.” The hauteur 
faded from the young face. Our own Mary Virginia 
appeared, changed in the twinkling of an eye. 

Inglesby favored me with condescending effusiveness. 
Flint got off with a smirking stare. 

“And this,“ said Inglesby in the sort of voice some 


JOHN FLINT, GENTLEMAN 223 

people use in addressing strange children to whom they 
desire to be patronizingly nice and don’t know how, 
“this is the Butterfly Man!” Out came the jovial smile 
in its full deadliness. The Butterfly Man’s lips drew 
back from his teeth and his eyes narrowed to gimlet 
points behind his glasses. “I have heard of you from 
Mr. Hunter. And so you collect butterflies! Very in¬ 
teresting and active occupation for any one that—ahem! 
likes that sort of thing. Very.” 

“He collects obituaries, too,” said Hunter, immensely 
amused. “You mustn’t overlook the obituaries, Mr. 
Inglesby. ’ ’ 

Mr. Inglesby favored the collector of butterflies and 
obituaries with another speculative, piglike stare. You 
could see the thought behind it: “Trifling sort of fel¬ 
low! Idiotic! Very.” Aloud he merely mumbled: 

“Singular taste. Very. Collecting obituaries, eh?” 

“Fascinating things to collect. Very,” said the But¬ 
terfly Man, sweetly. “Not to be laughed at. I might 
add yours to ’em, too, you know, some of these fine 
days! ’ ’ 

“Dilly, Dilly, come and be killed!” murmured Hunt¬ 
er. Mr. Inglesby, however, was visibly ruffled and 
annoyed. Who was this fellow braying of obituaries as 
if he, Inglesby, were on the highroad to oblivion already, 
when he was, in reality, still quite a young man? And 
right before Miss Eustis! He turned purple. 

“My obituary?” he spluttered. “Mine? Mine?” 

“Sure, if it’s worth while,” said the Butterfly Man, 
amiably. Mary Virginia barely suppressed a smile. 

“Madame would like to see you, Miss Eustis,” he told 
her. 


224 


SLIPPY McGEE 


Mary Virginia, bowing distantly to the millionaire and 
his secretary, walked off with him, I following. 

Once free of them, her spirits rose soaringly. 

“It’s been a lovely afternoon, and I ’ve enjoyed it 
all—except Mr. Inglesby. I don’t like Mr. Inglesby, 
Padre. He’s amusing enough, I suppose, at times, but 
one can’t seem to get rid of him—he’s a perfect Old 
Man of the Sea,” she told us, confidentially. “And you 
can’t imagine how detestably youthful he is, Mr. Flint! 
He told me half a dozen times this afternoon that after 
all, years don’t matter—it is the heart which is young. 
And he takes cold tubs and is proud of himself, and 
plays golf—for exercise!” The scorn of the lithe and 
limber young was in her voice. 

“What’s the use of being a millionaire, if you have a 
shape like the rainbarrel?” I quoted pensively. 

Later that night, when “the lights were fled, the gar¬ 
lands dead, and all but me departed,” I went over for 
my usual last half-hour with John Flint. Very often 
we have nothing whatever to say, and we are even wise 
enough not to say it. We sit silently, he with Kerry’s 
noble old head against his foot, each busy with his own 
thoughts and reflections, but each conscious of the 
friendly nearness of the other. You have never had a 
friend, if you have never known one with whom you 
might sit a silent, easy hour. To-night he sucked sav¬ 
agely at his old pipe, and his eyes were somber. 

“You got the straight tip from Miss Sally Ruth, 
father,” he said, coming out of a brown study. “What 
do you suppose that piker’s trying to crawl out of his 
cocoon for? He never wanted to caper around Apple- 
boro women before, did he? No. And here he’s been 


JOHN FLINT, GENTLEMAN 225 

muldooning to get some hog-fat off and some wind and 
waistline back. Now, why? To please himself? He 
don’t have to care a hoot what he looks like. To please 
some girl ? That’s more likely. Parson: that girl’s 
Mary Virginia Eustis.” He added, through his teeth: 
4 ‘Hunter knows. Hunter’s steering.” And then, with 
quiet conviction: ‘ ‘ They ’re both as crooked as hell! ’ ’ 
he finished. 

4 ‘ But the thing’s absurd on the face of it! Why, the 
mere notion is preposterous!” I insisted, angrily. 

“I have seen worse things happen,” said he, shortly. 
‘‘But there,—keep your hair on! Things don’t happen 
unless they ’re slated to happen, so don’t let it bother 
you too much. You go turn in and forget everything 
except that you need a night’s sleep.” 

I tried to follow his sound advice, but although I 
needed a night’s sleep and there was no tangible reason 
why I should n’t have gotten it, I did n’t. The shadow 
of Inglesby haunted my pillow. 


CHAPTER XIII 


4 ‘each in his own coin” 

W ITH the New Year had descended upon John 
Flint an obsessing and tormenting spirit 
which made him by fits and starts moody, 
’depressed, nervous, restless, or wholly silent and ab¬ 
stracted. I have known him to come in just before dawn, 
snatch a few hours ’ sleep, and be off again before day 
had well set in, though he must already have been far 
afield, for Kerry heeled him with lagging legs and hang¬ 
ing head. Or he would shut himself up, and refusing 
himself to all callors, fall into a cold fury of concentrated 
effort, sitting at his table hour after hour, tireless, ab¬ 
sorbed, accomplishing a week’s overdue work in a day 
and a night. Often his light burned all night through. 
Some of the most notable papers bearing liis name, and 
research work of far-reaching significance, came from 
that workroom then—as if lumps of ambergris had been 
tossed out of a whirlpool. 

All this time, too, he was working in conjunction with 
the Washington Bureau, experimenting with remedies 
for the boll-weevil, and fighting the plague of the cattle- 
tick. This, and the other outside work in which he was 
so immensely interested, could not be allowed to hang 
fire. Like many another, he found himself for his sal¬ 
vation caught in the great human net he himself had 
226 




“EACH IN HIS OWN COIN” 


227 


helped to spin. It was not only the country people who 
held him. Gradually, as he passed to and from on his 
way among them, and became acquainted with their 
children, there had sprung up a most curious sort of 
understanding between the Butterfly Man on the one 
side, and the half-articulate foreigners in the factory and 
the sly secretive mill-workers on the other. 

People I had never been able to get at humanly, people 
who resisted even Madame, not only chose to open their 
doors but their mouths, to Meester Fleent. Uncouth 
fumbling men, slip-shod women, dirty-faced children, 
were never dumb and suspicious or wholly untruthful 
and evasive, where the Butterfly Man was concerned. 
He was one to whom might be told, without shame, fear, 
or compunction, the plain, blunt, terrible truth. He 
understood . 

4 ‘I wish you’d look up Petronovich’s boy, father/’ he 
might tell me, or, “Madame, have a woman-talk with Lo- 
vena Smith’s girl at the mills, will you? Lovena’s a 
fool, and that girl’s up against things.” And we went, 
and wondered, afterwards, what particularly tender 
guardian angels kept close company with our Butterfly 
Man. 

Then occurred the great event which put Meester 
Fleent in a place apart in the estimation of all Apple- 
boro, forever settled his status among the mill-hands and 
the “hiekeys,” and incidentally settled a tormenting 
doubt of himself in his own mind. I mean the settling 
of the score against Big Jan. 

Half-Russian Jan was to the Poles what a padrone too 
often is to the Italian laborers, a creature who herded 
them together and mercilessly worked them for the profit 


SLIPPY McGEE 


of others, and incidentally his own, an exacting tyrant 
against whose will it was useless to rebel. He had a 
little timid wife with red eyes—perhaps because she cried 
so much over the annual baby which just as annually 
died. He made a good deal of money, but the dark Slav 
passion for whisky forced him to spend what he earned, 
and this increased a naturally sullen temper. He was the 
thorn in the Parish side; that we could do so little for 
the Poles was due in a large measure to Jan’s stubborn 
hindering. 

His people lived in terror of him. When they dis¬ 
pleased him he beat them. It was not a light beating, and 
once or twice we had in the Guest Rooms nursed its vic¬ 
tims back into some semblance of humanity. But what 
could we do? Jan was so efficient a foreman that 
Inglesby’s power was always behind him. So when Jan 
chose to get very drunk, and sang long, monotonous 
songs, particularly when he sang through his teeth, 
lugubriously: 


“Yeszeze Polska nie Zginela 
Polci my Zygemy . . .” 

men and women trembled. Poland might not be lost, 
but somebody’s skin always paid for that song. 

In passing one morning—it was a holiday—through 
the Poles’ quarters, an unpleasant enough stretch which 
other folks religiously avoided, the Butterfly Man heard 
shrieks coming from Michael Karski’s back yard. It 
was Michael’s wife and children who screamed. 

“It is the Boss who beats Michael, Meester Fleent,” a 
man volunteered. “The Boss, he is much drunk. Kar¬ 
ski’s woman, she did not like the ways of him in her 


“EACH IN HIS OWN COIN” 


229 


house, and Michael said, ‘I will to send for the police.’ 
So Big Jan beats Michael, and Michael’s woman, she 
hollers like hell.” 

John Flint knew inoffensive, timid Michael; he knew 
his broad-bosomed, patient, cowlike wife, and he liked 
the brood of shockheaded youngsters who plodded along 
patient in old clothes, bare-footed, and with scanty 
enough food. He had made a corn-cob doll for the lit- 
tlest girl and a cigar-box wagon with spool wheels for 
the littlest boy. Perhaps that is why he turned and went 
with the rest to Michael’s yard where Big Jan was knock¬ 
ing Michael about like a ten-pin, grunting through his 
teeth: “Now! Sen’ for those policemens, you!” 

Michael was no pretty thing to look upon, for Jan was 
in an uglier mood than usual, and Michael had greatly 
displeased him; therefore it was Michael’s turn to pay. 
Nobody interfered, for every one was horribly afraid 
Big Jan would turn upon him. Besides, was not he 
the Boss, and could he not say Go, and then must not 
a man go, short of pay, and with his wife and children 
crying ? Of a verity! 

The Butterfly Man slipped off his knapsack and laid 
his net aside. Then he pushed his way through the 
scared onlookers. 

“Meester Fleent! For God’s love, save my man, 
Meester Flint!” Michael’s wife Katya screamed at 

him. 

By way of answer Meester Fleent very deliberately 
handed her his eye-glasses. Then one saw that his eyes, 
slitted in his head, were cold and bright as a snake’s; 
his chin thrust forward, and in his red beard his lips 
made a straight line like a clean knife-cut. Two bright 


230 SLIPPY McGEE 

red spots had jumped into his tanned cheeks. His lean 
hands balled. 

He said no word; but the crumpled thing that was 
Michael was of a sudden plucked bodily out of Big Jan’s 
hands and thrust into the waiting woman’s. The aston¬ 
ished Boss found himself confronting a pale and formid¬ 
able face with a pair of eyes like glinting sword-blades. 

Kerry had followed his master, and was now close to 
his side. For the moment Flint had forgotten him. But 
Big Jan’s evil eyes caught sight of him. He knew the 
Butterfly Man’s dog very well. He snickered. A huge 
foot shot out, there was a howl of anguish and astonish¬ 
ment, and Kerry went flying through the air as if shot 
from a catapult. 

“So!” Jan grunted like a satisfied hog, “I feex you 
like that in one meenute, me . 9 ’ 

The red jumped from John Flint’s cheeks to his eyes, 
and stayed there. Why, this hulking brute had hurt 
Kerry! His breath exhaled in a whistling sigh. He 
seemed to coil himself together; with a tiger-leap he 
launched himself at the great hulk before him. It went 
down. It had to. 

I know every detail of that historic fight. Is it not 
written large in the Book of the Deeds of Appleboro, 
and have I not heard it by word of mouth from many a 
raving eye-witness? Does not Dr. Walter Westmoreland 
lick his lips over it unto this daj r ? 

A long groaning sigh went up from the onlookers. 
Meester Fleent was a great and a good man; but he was 
a crippled man. Death was very close to him. 

Big Jan was not too drunk to fight savagely, but he 
was in a most horrible rage, and this weakened him. He 


“EACH IN HIS OWN COIN” 


231 


meant to kill this impudent fellow who had taken Michael 
away from him before he had half-finished with him. 
But first he would break every bone in the crippled man’s 
body, take him in his hands and break his back over one 
knee as one does a slat. A man with one leg to balk 
him, Big Jan? That called for a killing. Jan had no 
faintest idea he might not be able to make good this 
pleasant intention. 

It was a stupendous fight, a Homeric fight, a fight 
against odds, which has become a town tradition. If Jan 
was formidable, a veritable bison, his opponent was no 
cringing workman scared out of his wits and too timid 
to defend himself. John Flint knew his own weakness, 
knew what he could expect at Jan’s hands, and it made 
him cool, collected, wary, and deadly. He was no more 
the mild-mannered, soft-spoken Butterfly Man, but an¬ 
other and a more primal creature, fighting for his life. 
Big Jan, indeed, fancied he had nobody but the Butterfly 
Man to deal with; as a matter of fact he was tackling 
Slippy McGee. 

Skilled, watchful, dangerous, that old training saved 
him. Every time Jan came to his feet, roaring, thrash¬ 
ing his arms like flails, making head-long, bull-like 
rushes, the Butterfly Man managed to send him sprawl¬ 
ing again. Then he himself caught one well-aimed blow, 
and went staggering; but before slow-moving and raging 
Jan could follow up his advantage, with a lightning-like 
quickness the Butterfly Man made a battering ram of 
his head, caught Jan in the pit of the stomach, and even 
as he fell Jan went down, too, and went down under¬ 
neath. Desperately, fighting like a fiend, John Flint 
kept him down. And presently using every wrestler’s 


232 


SLIPPY McGEE 


trick that he knew, and bringing to bear every ounce 
of his saved and superb strength, in a most orderly, busi¬ 
nesslike, cold-blooded manner he proceeded to pound 
Big Jan into pulp. The devil that had been chained 
these seven years was a-loose at last, rampant, fully 
aroused, and not easily satisfied. Besides, had not Jan 
most brutally and wantonly tried to kill Kerry? 

If it was a well deserved it was none the less a most 
drastic punishment, and when it was over Big Jan lay 
still. He would lie prone for many a day, and he would 
carry marks of it to his grave. 

When the tousled victor, with a reeling head, an eye 
fast closing, and a puffed and swollen lip, staggered up¬ 
right and stood swaying on his feet, he found himself 
surrounded by a great quiet ring of men and women 
who regarded him with eyes of wonder and amaze. 
He was superhuman; he had accomplished the impos¬ 
sible ; paid the dreaded Boss in his own coin, yea, given 
him full measure to the running over thereof! No man 
of all the men Jan had beaten in his time had received 
such as Jan himself had gotten at this man’s hands to¬ 
day. The reign of the Boss was over: and the con¬ 
queror was a crippled man! A great sighing breath of 
sheer worshipful admiration went up; they were too 
profoundly moved to cheer him; they could only stand 
and stare. When they wished, reverently, to help him, 
he waved them aside. 

4 ‘Where f s my dog?” he demanded thickly through his 
swollen lips. “Where’s Kerry? If he’s dead—” he 
cast upon fallen Jan a menacing glare. 

“Your dog’s in bed with the baby, and Ma’s give him 
milk with brandy in it, and he drank it and growled at 




233 


“EACH IN HIS OWN COIN” 

her, and the boys is holding him down now to keep him 
from coming out to you, and he ain’t much hurt nohow,” 
squealed one of Michael’s big-eyed children. 

John Flint, stretching his arms above his head, drew 
in a great gulping mouthful of air, exhaled it, and 
laughed a deepchested, satisfied laugh, for all he was 
staggering like a drunken man. Here Michael’s wife 
Katya came puffing out of her house like a traction 
engine—such was the shape in which nature formed her 
—and falling on her knees, caught his hand to her vast 
bosom, weeping like the overflowing of a river and blub¬ 
bering uncouth sounds. 

“Get up, you crazy woman!” snarled John Flint, his 
face going brick-red. “Stop licking my hand, and 
get up! ” Although he did not know it, Katya symbol¬ 
ized the mental attitude of every laborer in Appleboro 
toward him from that hour. 

“Here’s Doctor Westmoreland! And here comes the 
po-lice!” yelled a boy, joyous with excitement. 

Westmoreland cast one by no means sympathetic glance 
at the wreck on the ground, and his big arms went about 
John Flint; his fingers flew over him like an apprehensive 
father’s. 

“What’s all this? Who's been fighting here, you 
people?” demanded the town marshal’s brisk voice. 
“Big Jan? And—good Lord! Mister Flint!” His 
eyes bulged. He looked from Big Jan on the ground 
to the Butterfly Man under Westmoreland’s hands, with 
an almost ludicrous astonishment. 

“I’m sure sorry, Mr. Flint, if I have to give you a 
little trouble for awhile, but—” 

“But you ’ll be considerably sorrier if you do it,” said 


234 


SLIPPY McGEE 


Dr. Walter Westmoreland savagely. “You take that 
hulk over there to the jail, until I have time to see him. 
I can’t have him sent home to his wife in that shape. 
And look here, Marshal: Jan got exactly what he de¬ 
served; it’s been coming to him this long time. If 
Inglesby’s bunch tries to take a hand in this, 1 ’ll try 
to make Appleboro too hot to hold somebody. Under¬ 
stand?” 

The marshal was a wise enough man, and he under¬ 
stood. Inglesby’s pet foreman had been all but killed, 
and Inglesby would be furiously angry. But—Mr. Flint 
had done it, and behind Mr. Flint were powers perhaps 
as potent as Inglesby’s. One thing more may have in¬ 
fluenced the marshal: The hitherto timid and apathetic 
people had merged into a compact and ominous ring 
around the Butterfly Man and the doctor. A shrill mur¬ 
mur arose, like the wind in the trees presaging a storm. 
There would be riot in staid Appleboro if one were so 
foolish as to lay a detaining hand upon John Flint this 
day. More yet, the beloved Westmoreland himself would 
probably begin it. Never had the marshal seen West¬ 
moreland look so big and so raging. 

“All right, Doctor,” said he, hastily backing off. “I 
reckon you ’re man enough to handle this.” 

Some proud worshiper brought Mr. Flint his hat, knap¬ 
sack, and net, and the mountainous Katya insisted upon 
tenderly placing his glasses upon his nose—upside down. 
Westmoreland used to say afterward that for a moment 
he feared Flint was going to bite her hand! Then man 
and dog were placed in the doctor’s car and hurried home 
to my mother; who made no comment, but put both in 
the larger Guest Room, the whimpering dog on a comfort 


“EACH IN HIS OWN COIN” 


235 


at the foot of his master’s bed. Kerry had a broken 
rib, but outside of this he was not injured. He would 
be out and all right again in a week, Westmoreland 
assured his anxious master. 

‘‘Oh, you man , you!’’ crowed Westmoreland. 4 ‘John, 
John, if anything were needed to make me love you, this 
would clinch it! Prying open nature’s fist, John, having 
butterflies bear your name, working hand in glove with 
your government, boosting boys, writing books, are all 
of them fine big grand things. But if along with them 
one’s man enough to stand up, John, with the odds 
against him, and punish a bully and a scoundrel, the only 
way a bully and a scoundrel can feel punishment, that’s 
a heart-stirring thing, John! It gets to the core of my 
heart. It is n’t so much the fight itself, it’s being able 
to take care of oneself and others when one has to. Yes, 
yes, yes. A fight like that is worth a million dollars to 
the man w T ho wins it! ” 

Westmoreland may be president of the Peace League, 
and tell us that force is all wrong. Nevertheless, his 
great-grandmother was bom in Tipperary. 

We kept the Butterfly Man indoors for a week, while 
Westmoreland doctored a viciously black eye and sewed 
up his lip. Morning and afternoon Appleboro called, 
and left tribute of fruit and flowers. 

“Gad, suh, he behaved like one of Stonewall Jack¬ 
son’s men!” said Major Cartwright, pridefully. “No 
yellow in him; he’s one of us!” 

At nights came the Polish folks, and these people whom 
he had once despised because they “hadn’t got sense 
enough to talk American,” he now received with a com¬ 
plete and friendly understanding. 


236 


SLIPPY McGEE 


“I just come by and see how you make to feel, 
Meester. ’ ’ 

“Oh, I feel fine, Joe, thank you.” 

There would be an interval of absolute silence, which 
did not seem to embarrass either visited or visitor. 
Then: 

“Baby better now?” Meester would ask, interestedly. 

“That beeg doctor, he oil heem an’ make heem well 
all right. ’ ’ 

After awhile: “I mebbe go now, Meester.” 

“Good-night,” said the host, briefly. 

At the door the Pole would turn, and look back, with 
the wistfully animal look of the Under Dog. 

“Those cheeldren, they make to get you the leetle 
bug. You mebbe like that, Meester, yes? They make 
to get you plenty much bug, those cheeldren. We all 
make to get you the bug, Meester, thank you.” 

“That’s mighty nice of you folks.” Then one felt 
the note in the quiet voice which explained his hold upon 
people. 

“Hell, no. We like to do that for you, Meester. 
Thank you.” And closing the door gently after him, 
he would slink off. 

“They don’t need to be so allfired grateful,” said 
John Flint frankly. “Parson, I’m the guy to be grate¬ 
ful. I got a whole heap more out of that shindy than 
a black eye and a pretty mouth. I was bluemolding for 
a man-tussle, and that scrap set me up again. You see 
—I wasn’t sure of myself any more, and it was sour¬ 
ing on my stomach. Now I know I haven’t lost out, 
I feel like a white man. Yep, it gives a fellow the 
holiday-heart to be dead sure he’s plenty able to use his 


“EACH IN HIS OWN COIN” 


£37 

fists if he ’s got to. Westmoreland’s right about that.” 

I was discreetly silent. God forgive me, in my heart 
I also was most sinfully glad my Butterfly Man could 
and would use his fists when he had to. I do not believe 
in peace at any price. I know very well that wrong must 
be conquered before right can prevail. But I shouldn’t 
have been so set up! 

“Here,” said he one morning. “Ask Madame to give 
this to Jan’s wife. And say, beg her for heaven’s sake 
to buy some salve for her eyelids, will you?” “This” 
was a small roll of bills. “I owe it to Jan,” he ex¬ 
plained, with his twistiest smile. 

Westmoreland’s skill removed all outward marks of 
the fray, and the Butterfly Man went his usual way; but 
although he had laid at rest one cruel doubt, he was still 
in deep waters. Because of his stress his clothes had 
begun to hang loosely upon him. 

Now the naturalist who knows anything at all of those 
deep mysterious well-springs underlying his great pro¬ 
fession, understands that he is a ’prentice hand learning 
his trade in the workshop of the Almighty; wherein “the 
invisible things of Him from the creation of the world 
are clearly seen, being understood by the things that 
are made.” As Paul on a time reminded the Romans. 

Wherefore I who had learned somewhat from the 
Little Peoples now applied what they had taught me; 
and when I saw my man grow restless, move about aim¬ 
lessly, withdraw into himself and become as one blind 
and dumb and unhearing, I understood he was facing 
a change, making ready to project himself into some 
larger phase of existence as yet in the womb of the future. 
So I did not question what wind drove him forth before 


238 


SLIPPY McGEE 


it like a lost leaf. The loving silent companionship of 
red Kerry, the friendly faces of young children to whom 
he was kind, the eyes of poor men and women looking to 
him for help, these were better for him now than I. 

But my mother was not a naturalist, and she was pro¬ 
voked with John Flint. He ate irregularly, he slept as 
it pleased God. He was “running wild” again. This 
displeased her, particularly as Appleboro had at her 
instigation included Mr. John Flint in its most exclusive 
list, and there were invitations she was determined he 
should accept. She had put her hand to the social plow 
in his behalf, and she had no faintest notion of with¬ 
drawing it. Once fairly aroused, Madame had that able- 
bodied will heaven seems to have lavished so plenteously 
upon small women: In recompense, I dare say, for lack 
of size. 

Therefore Mr. Flint duteously appeared at intervals 
among the elect, and appeared even to advantage. And 
my mother remarked, complacently, that blood will tell: 
he had the air! He was not expected to dance, but he 
was a superb cardplayer. He never told jokes, and so 
avoided deadly repetition. He had in a large measure 
that virtue the Chinese extol—the virtue of allowing 
others to save their faces in peace. Was it any wonder 
Mr. Flint’s social position was soon solidly established? 

He played the game as my mother forced it upon him, 
though at times, I think, it bored and chafed him sorely. 
What chafed him even more sorely was the unprece¬ 
dented interest many young ladies—and some old enough 
to know better—suddenly evinced in entomology. 

Mr. Flint almost overnight developed a savage cun¬ 
ning in eluding the seekers of entomological lore. One 


“EACH IN HIS OWN COIN” 


239 


might suppose a single man would rejoice to see his drab 
w T orkroom swarm with these brightly-colored fluttering 
human butterflies; he bore their visits as visitations, dis¬ 
playing the chastened resignation Job probably showed 
toward the latest ultra-sized carbuncle. 

“Cheer up!” urged Laurence, who was watching this 
turn of affairs with unfeeling mirth. “The worst is yet 
to come. These are only the chickens: wait until the 
hens get on your trail! ’ * 

“Mr. Flint,” said Mary Virginia one afternoon, rub¬ 
bing salt into his smarting wounds, “Mr. Flint, I am so 
glad all the girls like you so much. You fascinate them. 
They say you are such a profoundly clever and interest¬ 
ing man, Mr. Flint! Why, some of those girls are per¬ 
fectly demented about you!’ ’ 

“Demented,” said he, darkly, “is the right word for 
them when it comes down to fussing about me.” Now 
Laurence had just caught him in his rooms, and, declar¬ 
ing that he looked overworked and pale, had dragged 
him forcibly outside on the porch, where we were now 
sitting. Mary Virginia, in a white skirt, sport coat, and 
a white felt hat which made her entrancingly pretty, had 
been visiting my mother and now strolled over to John 
Flint’s, after her old fashion. 

“I feel like making the greatest sort of a fuss about 
you myself, ’ ’ she said honestly. ‘ ‘ Anyhow, I’m mighty 
glad girls like you. It’s a good sign.” 

41 If they do—though God knows I can’t see why—I’m 
obliged to them, seeing it pleases you!” said Flint, with¬ 
out, however, showing much gratitude in eyes or voice. 
11 To tell you the truth, it looks to me at times as if they 
were wished on me.” 


240 SLIPPY McGEE 

Mary Virginia tried to look horrified, and giggled 
instead. 

“If I could only make any of them understand any¬ 
thing !” said the Butterfly Man desperately, “but I 
can't. If only they really wanted to know, I’d be more 
than glad to teach them. But they don't. I show them 
and show them and tell them and tell them, over and over 
and over again, and the same thing five minutes later, 
and they haven’t even listened! They don’t care. 
What do they take up my time and say they like my 
butterflies for, when they don’t like them at all and don’t 
want to know anything about them? That’s what gets 
me!” 

Laurence winked at Mary Virginia, shamelessly. 

“Bugs!” said he, inelegantly. “That’s what’s in¬ 
tended to get you, you old duffer!” 

“Mr. Flint,” said Mary Virginia, with dancing ej^es. 
“I don’t blame those girls one single solitary bit for 
wanting to know all about—butterflies.” 

“But they don’t want to know, I tell you!” Mr. 
Flint’s voice rose querulously. 

“My dear creature, I’d be stuck on you myself if I 
were a girl,” said Laurence sweetly. “Padre, prepare 
yourself to say, ‘Bless you, my children!’ I see this 
innocent’s finish.” And he began to sing, in a lacka¬ 
daisical manner, through his nose: 

“Now you ’re married you must obey, 

You must be true to all you say, 

Live together all your life—” 

No answering smile came to John Flint’s lips. He 
made no reply to the light banter, but stiffened, and 


“EACH IN HIS OWN COIN” 


211 


stared ahead of him with a set face and eyes into which 
crept an expression of anguish. Mary Virginia, with a 
quick glance, laid her hand on his arm. 

‘ ‘ Don’t mind Laurence and me, we ’re a pair of sillies. 
You and the Padre are too good to put up with us the 
way you do,” she said, coaxingly. “And—we girls do 
like you, Mr. Flint, whether we ’re wished on you or 
not.” 

That seductive “we” in that golden voice routed him, 
horse and foot. He looked at the small hand on his 
arm, and his glance went swiftly to the sweet and inno¬ 
cent eyes looking at him with such frank friendliness. 

“It’s better than I deserve,” he said, gently enough. 
“And it isn’t I’m not grateful to the rest of them for 
liking me,—if they do. It’s that I want to box their 
ears when they pretend to like my insects, and don’t.” 

“Being a gentleman has its drawbacks,” said I, 
tentatively. 

“Believe me/” he spoke with great feeling. “It’s 
nothing short of doing a life-stretch! ’ ’ 

The boy and girl laughed gaily. When he spoke thus 
it added to his unique charm. So profoundly were they 
impressed with what he had become, that even what he 
had been, as they remembered it, increased their respect 
and affection. That past formed for him a somber back¬ 
ground, full of half-lights and shadows, against which 
he stood out with the revealing intensity of a Rembrandt 
portrait. 

“What I came over to tell you, is that Madame says 
you ’re to stay home this evening, Mr. Flint,” said Mary 
Virginia, comfortably. “I’m spending the night with 
Madame, you ’re to know, and we ’re planning a nice 


242 


SLIPPY McGEE 


folksy informal sort of a time; and you ’re to be home. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Orders from headquarters, ’ ’ commented Laurence. 

“All right,” agreed the Butterfly Man, briefly. 

Mary Virginia shook out her white skirts, and patted 
her black hair into even more distractingly pretty dis¬ 
order. 

“I’ve got to get back to the office—mean case I’m 
working on,” complained Laurence. “Mary Virginia, 
walk a little way with me, won’t you? Do, child! It 
will sweeten all my afternoon and make my work easier. ’ ’ 

“You haven’t grown up a bit—thank goodness!” said 
Mary Virginia. But she went with him. 

The Butterfly Man looked after them speculatively. 

“Mrs. Eustis,” he remarked, “is an ambitious sort of 
a lady, is n’t she ? Thinks in millions for her daughter, 
expects her to make a great match and all that. Miss 
Sally Ruth told me she’d heard Mrs. Eustis tried once 
or twice to pull off a match to suit herself, but Miss Mary 
Virginia wouldn’t stand for it.” 

“Why, naturally, Mrs. Eustis would like to see the 
child well settled in life,” said I. 

“Oh, you don’t have to be a Christian all the time,” 
said he calmly. “I know Mrs. Eustis, too. She talked 
to me for an hour and a half without stopping, one night 
last week. See here, parson; Inglesby’s got a roll 
that outweighs his record. Suppose he wants to settle 
down and reform—with a young wife to help him do it 
—would n’t it be a real Christian job to lady’s-aid him ? ” 

I eyed him askance. 

“Now there’s Laurence,” went on the Butterfly Man, 
speculatively. “Laurence is making plenty of trouble, 
but not so much money. No, Mrs. Eustis would n’t faint 

% 


“EACH IN HIS OWN COIN” 243 

at the notion of Inglesby, but she’d keel over like a 
perfect lady at the bare thought of Laurence.” 

“I don’t see,” said I, crossly, “why she should be 
called upon to faint for either of them. Inglesby’s— 
Inglesby. That makes him impossible. As for the boy, 
why, he rocked that child in her cradle. ’ ’ 

“That didn’t keep either of them from growing up 
a man and a woman. Looks to me as if they were be¬ 
ginning to find it out, parson.” 

I considered his idea, and found it so eminently right, 
proper, and beautiful, that I smiled over it. “It would 
be ideal,” I admitted. 

“Her mother wouldn’t agree with you, though her 
father might,” he said dryly. And he asked: 

“Ever had a hunch?” 

“A presentiment, you mean?” 

“No; a hunch. Well, I ’ve got one. I’ve got a 
hunch there’s trouble ahead for that girl.” 

This seemed so improbable, in the light of her fortu¬ 
nate days, that I smiled cheerfully. 

“Well, if there should be,—here are you and I to 
stand by.” 

“Sure,” said he, laconically, “that’s all we ’re here 
for—to stand by.” 

Although it was January, the weather was again 
springlike. All day the air was like a golden wine, 
drenched in a golden, sun. All day in the cedars’ dark 
and vivid green the little wax-wings flew in and out, 
and everywhere the blackberry bramble that “would 
grace the parlors of heaven ’ ’ was unfolding its crisp red 
leaves and white buds; and all the roads and woods were 
gay with the scarlet berries of the casida, which the 


244 


SLIPPY McGEE 


robins love. And the nights were clear and still and 
starry, nights of a beauty so vital one sensed it as some¬ 
thing alive. 

Because Mary Virginia was to spend that night at the 
Parish House, Mrs. Eustis having been called away and 
the house for once free of guests, my mother had seized 
the occasion to call about her the youth in which her soul 
delighted. To-night she was as rosy and bright-eyed as 
any one of her girl-friends. She beamed when she saw 
the old rooms alive and alight with fresh and laughing 
faces and blithe figures. There was Laurence, with that 
note in his voice, that light in his eyes, that glow and 
glory upon him, which youth alone knows; and Dabney, 
with his black hair, as usual, on end, and his intelligent 
eyes twinkling behind his glasses; and Claire Dexter, 
colored like a pearl set in a cluster of laughing girls; 
and Mary Virginia, all in white, so beautiful that she 
brought a mist to the eyes that watched her. All the 
other gay and charming figures seemed but attendants 
for this supremer loveliness, snow-white, rose-red, ebony- 
black, like the queen’s child in the fairy-tale. 

The Butterfly Man had obediently put in his appear¬ 
ance. With the effect which a really strong character 
produces, he was like an insistent deep undernote that 
dominates and gives meaning to a lighter and merrier 
melody. All this bright life surged, never away from, 
but always toward and around him. Youth claimed him, 
shared itself with him, gave him lavishly of its best, be¬ 
cause he fascinated and ensnared its fresh imagination. 
Though he should live to be a thousand it would ever 
pay homage to some nameless magic quality of spirit 
which was his. 


“EACH IN HIS OWN COIN” 


24,5 


“Are you writing something new? Have you found 
another butterfly ?” asked the young things, full of in¬ 
terest and respect. 

Well, he had promised a certain paper by a certain 
time, though what people could find to like so much in 
what he had to say about his insects— 

* * Because, ” said Dabney, “you create in us a new feel¬ 
ing for them. They ’re living things with a right to 
their lives, and you show us what wonderful little lives 
most of them are. You bring them close to us in a way 
that doesn’t disgust us. I guess, Butterfly Man, the 
truth is you’ve found a new way of preaching the old 
gospel of One Father and one life; and the common sense 
of common folks understands what you mean, thanks 
you for it, likes you for it, and—asks you to tell us 
some more.” 

“Whenever a real teacher appears, always the common 
people hear him gladly,” said I, reflectively. 

“Only,” said Mary Virginia, quickly, “when the 
teacher himself is just as uncommon as he can be, 
Padre.” She smiled at John Flint with a sincerity that 
honored him. 

He stood abashed and silent before this naive appreci¬ 
ation. It was at once his greatest happiness and his 
deepest pain—that open admiration of these clean-souled 
youngsters. 

When he had gone, I too slipped away, for the still 
white night outside called me. I went around to that 
favorite retreat of mine, the battered seat shut in among 
spireas and syringas. I like to say my rosary out of 
doors. The beads slipping through my fingers soothed 
me with their monotonous insistent petition. Prayer 


246 


SLIPPY McGEE 


brought me closer to the heart of the soft and shining 
night, and the big still stars. 

They shall perish, hut thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall 
ivax old as a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and 
they shall he dhanged; hut thou art the same and thy years shall 
have no end. 

The surety of the beautiful words brought the great 
overshadowing Presence near me. And I fell into a half- 
re very, in which the hailmarys wove themselves in and 
out, like threads in a pattern. 

Dreamily enough, I heard the youthful guests depart, 
in a gale of laughter and flute-like goodnights. And I 
noted, too, that no light as yet shone in the Butterfly 
Man’s rooms. "Well—he would hurl himself into the 
work to-morrow, probably, and clear it up in an hour 
or two. He was like that. 

My retreat was just off the path, and near the little 
gate between our grounds and Judge Mayne’s. Thus, 
though I was completely hidden by the screening bushes 
and the shadow of the holly tree as well, I could plainly 
see the two who presently came down the bright open 
path. Of late it had given me a curious sense of com¬ 
fort to see Laurence with Mary Virginia, and, I reflected, 
he had been her shadow recently. I liked that. His 
strength seemed to shield her from Hunter’s ambiguous 
smile, from Inglesby’s thoughts, even from her own 
mother’s ambition. 

I could see my girl’s dear dark head outlined with a 
circle of moonlight as with a halo, and it barely reached 
my tall boy’s shoulder. Her hand lay lightly on his 
arm, and he bent toward her, bringing his close-cropped 
brown head nearer hers. I couldn’t have risen or 


‘‘EACH IN HIS OWN COIN” 


247 


spoken then, without interrupting them. I merely 
glanced out at them, smilingly, with my rosary in my 
finger. 

I reached the end of a decade: “As it was in the 
beginning, is now, and ever shall be — 

They stopped at the gate, and fell silent for a space, 
the girl with her darling face uplifted. The fleecy wrap 
she wore fell about her slim shoulders in long lines, 
glinting with silver. She did not give the effect of re¬ 
moteness, but of being near and dear and desirable and 
beautiful. The boy, looking upon her with his heart in 
his eyes, drew nearer. 

“Mary Virginia/’ said he, eagerly and huskily and 
passionately and timidly and hopefully and despairingly, 
“Mary Virginia, are you going to marry anybody?” 

Mary Virginia came back from the stars in the night 
sky to the stars in the young man’s eyes. “Why, yes, 
I hope I am,” said she lightly enough, but one saw she 
had been startled. “What a funny boy you are, Lau¬ 
rence, to be sure! You don’t expect me to remain a 
spinster, do you?” 

“You are going to be married?” This time despair 
was uppermost. 

“I most certainly am!” said Mary Virginia stoutly. 
“Why, I confided that to you years and years and years 
ago! Don’t you remember I always insisted he should 
have golden hair, and sea-blue eyes, and a classic brow, 
and a beautiful willingness to go away somewhere and 
die of a broken heart if I ordered him to?” 

“Who is it?” 

“Who is who?” she parried provokingly. 

“The chap you ’re going to marry?” 


SLIPPY McGEE 


218 

Mary Virginia appeared to reflect deeply and anx¬ 
iously. She put out a foot, with the eternal feminine 
gesture, and dug a neat little hole in the graveled walk 
with her satin toe. 

“Laurence,” said she. “I ’m going to tell you the 
truth. The truth is, Laurence, that I simply hate to have 
to tell you the truth.” 

“Mary Virginia!” he stammered wretchedly. “You 
hate to have to tell me the truth? Oh, my dear, why? 
Why?” 

“Because.” 

“But because why?” 

“Because,” said the dear hussy, demurely, “I don’t 
know.” 

Laurence’s arms fell to his sides, helplessly; he craned 
his neck and stared. 

“Mary Virginia!” said he, in a breathless whisper. 

Mary Virginia nodded. “It’s really none of your 
business, you know,” she explained sweetly; “but as 
you’ve asked me, why, I ’ll tell you. That same ques¬ 
tion plagues and fascinates me, too, Laurence. Why, 
just consider! Here’s a whole big, big world full of 
men—tall men, short men, lean men, fat men, silly men, 
wise men, ugly men, handsome men, sad men, glad men, 
good men, bad men, rich men, poor men,—oh, all sorts 
and kinds and conditions and complexions of men: any 
one of whom I might wake up some day and find myself 
married to: and I don’t know which one! It delights 
and terrifies and fascinates and amuses and puzzles me 
when I begin to think about it. Here I’ve got to marry 
Somebody and I don’t know any more than Adam’s 


“EACH IN HIS OWN COIN” 


249 


housecat who and where that Somebody is, and he might 
pop from around the corner at me, any minute! It 
makes the thing so much more interesting, so much more 
like a big risky game of guess, when you don’t know, 
don’t you think?” 

“No: it makes you miserable,” said Laurence, briefly. 

“But I’m not miserable at all!” 

“You ’re not, because you don’t have to be. But I 
am!” 

“You? Why, Laurence! Why should you be miser¬ 
able ? ’ ’ Her voice lost its blithe lightness; it was a little 
faint. She said hastily, without waiting for his reply: 
“I guess I’d better run in. It was silly of me to walk 
to the gate with you at this hour. I think Madame’s 
calling me. Goodnight, Laurence.” 

“No, you don’t,” said he. “And it wasn’t silly of 
you to come, either; it was dear and delightful, and I 
prayed the Lord to put the notion into your darling 
head, and He did it. And now you ’re here you don’t 
budge from this spot until you’ve heard what I’ve got 
to say. 

“Mary Virginia, I reckon you ’re just about the most 
beautiful girl in the world. You’ve been run after and 
courted and flattered and followed until it was enough 
to turn any girl’s head, and it would have turned any 
girl’s head but yours. You could say to almost any man 
alive, Come, and he’d come—oh, yes, he’d come quick. 
You’ve got the earth to pick and choose from—but I’m 
asking you to pick and choose me. I have n’t got as 
much to offer you as I shall have some of these days, 
but I’ve got me myself, body and brain and heart and 


250 


SLIPPY McGEE 


soul, sound to the core, and all of me yours, and I think 
that counts most, if you care as I do. Mary Virginia, 
will you marry me?” 

“Oh, but, Laurence! Why—Laurence—I—indeed, 
I didn’t know—I didn’t think—” stammered the girl. 
“At least, I didn’t dream you cared—like that.” 

“Didn’t you? Well, all I can say is, you’ve been 
mighty blind, then. For I do care. I guess I’ve always 
cared like that, only, somehow, it’s taken this one short 
winter to drive home what I’d been learning all my 
life?” said he, soberly. “I reckon I’ve been just like 
other fool-boys, Mary Virginia. That is, I spooned a bit 
around every good looking girl I ran up against, but I 
soon found out it wasn’t the real thing, and I quit. 
Something in me knew all along I belonged to somebody 
else. To you. I believe now—Mary Virginia, I believe 
with all my heart—that I cared for you when you were 
squalling in your cradle.” 

“Oh! ... Did I squall, really?” 

“ Squall? Sometimes it was tummy and sometimes 
it was temper. Between them you yelled like a Co¬ 
manche,” said this astonishing lover. 

Mary Virginia tilted her head back, adorably. 

“It was very, very noble of you to mind me—under 
the circumstances,” she conceded, graciously. 

“Believe me, it was,” agreed Laurence. “I didn’t 
know it, of course, but even at that tender age my fate 
was upon me, for I liked to mind you. Even the bawling 
didn’t daunt me, and I adored you when you resembled 
a squab. Yes, I was in love with you then. I’m in love 
with you now. My girl, my own girl, I ’ll go out of this 
world and into the next one loving you. ’ ’ 


“EACH IN HIS OWN COIN” 251 

“Then why,” she asked reproachfully, “haven’t you 
said so?” 

“Why haven’t I said what?” 

“Why, you know. That you—loved me, Laurence.” 
Her rich voice had sunk to a whisper. 

“Good Lord, haven’t I been saying it?” 

“No, you haven’t! You’ve been merely asking me 
to marry you. But you have n’t said a word about lov¬ 
ing me, until this very minute!” 

“But you must know perfectly well that I’m crazy 
about you, Mary Virginia! ’ ’ said the boy, and his voice 
trembled with bewilderment as well as passion. “How 
in heaven’s name could I help being crazy about you? 
Why, from the beginning of things, there’s never been 
anybody else, but just you. I never even pretended to 
care for anybody else. No, there’s nobody but you. 
Not for me. You ’re everything and all, where I’m con¬ 
cerned. And—please, please look up, beautiful, and tell 
me the truth: look at me, Mary Virginia !” 

The white-clad figure moved a hair’s breadth nearer; 
the uplifted lovely face was very close. 

“Do I really mean that to you, Laurence? All that, 
really and truly ? ” she asked, wistfully. 

“Yes! And more. And more!” 

“I ’ll be the unhappiest girl in the world: I ’ll be the 
most miserable woman alive—if you ever change your 
mind, Laurence,” said she. 

There was a quivering pause. Then: 

“You care?” asked the boy, almost breathlessly. 
“Mary Virginia, you care?” He laid his hands upon 
her shoulders and bent to search the alluring face. 

“Laurence!” said Mary Virginia, with a tremulous, 


252 


SLIPPY McGEE 


half-tearful laugh, “Laurence, it’s taken this one short 
winter to teach me, too. And—you were mistaken, ut¬ 
terly mistaken about those symptoms of mine. It 
wasn’t tummy, Laurence. And it wasn’t temper. I 
think—I am sure—that what I was trying so hard to 
squall to you in my cradle was—that I cared, Laurence. ’ ’ 

The young man’s arms closed about her, and I saw the 
young mouths meet. I saw more than that: I saw other 
figures steal out into the moonlight and stand thus en¬ 
twined, and one was the ghost of what once was I. That 
other, lost Armand De Ranee, looked at me wistfully with 
his clear eyes; and I was very, very sorry for him, as 
one may be poignantly sorry for the innocent, beautiful 
dead. My hand tightened on my beads, and the feel of 
my cassock upon me, as a uniform, steadied and sus¬ 
tained me. 

Those two had drawn back a little into the shadows 
as if the night had reached out its arms to them. Such 
a night belonged to such as these; they invest it, lend 
it meaning, give it intelligible speech. As for me, I was 
an old priest in an old cassock, with all his fond and 
foolish old heart melting in his breast. Youth alone is 
eternal and immortal. And as for love, it is of God. 

“As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall 
be, world without end, Amen.” I had finished the 
decade. And then as one awakes from a trance I rose 
softly and as softly crept back to the Parish House, 
happy and at peace, because I had seen that which makes 
the morning stars rejoice when they sing together. 

“Armand,” said my mother, sleepily, “is that you, 
dear? I must have been nodding in my chair. Mary 
Virginia’s just walked to the gate with Laurence.” 


“EACH IN HIS OWN COIN” 


253 


“My goodness,” said she, half an hour later. “What 
on earth can that child mean? Hadn’t you better call 
her in, Armand?” 

“No,” said I, decidedly. 

Laurence brought her back presently. There must 
have been something electrical in the atmosphere, for my 
mother of a sudden sat bolt upright in her chair. 
Women are like that. That is one of the reasons why 
men are so afraid of them. 

“Padre, and p’tite Madame,” began Laurence, 
“you ’ve been like a father and mother to me—and— 
and—” 

“And we thought you ought to know,” said Mary 
Virginia. 

“My children!” cried my mother, ecstatically, “it is 
the wish of my heart! Always have I prayed our good 
God to let this happen—and you see?” 

“But it’s a great secret: it’s not to be breathed, yet,” 
said Mary Virginia. 

“Except, of course, my father—” began Laurence. 

“And the Butterfly Man,” I added, firmly. Well 
knowing none of us could keep such news from him. 

“As for me,” said my mother, gloriously reckless, “I 
shall open one of the two bottles of our great-grand¬ 
father’s wine!” The last time that wine had been 
opened was the day I was ordained. “Armand, go 
and bring John Flint.” 

When I reached his rooms Kerry was whining over a 
huddled form on the porch steps. John Flint lay prone, 
his arms outstretched, horribly suggestive of one cruci¬ 
fied. At my step he struggled upright. I had my arms 
about him in another moment. 


254 * 


SLIPPY McGEE 


“Are you hurt? sick? John, John, my son, what is 
it? What is it?” 

“No, no, I’m all right. I—was just a little shaky 
for the minute. There, there, don’t you be scared, 
father.” But his voice shook, and the hand I held was 
icy cold. 

“My son, my dear son, what is wrong with you?” 

He controlled himself with a great effort. “Oh, I’ve 
been a little off my feed of late, father, that’s all. See, 
I’m perfectly all right, now.” And he squared his 
shoulders and tried to speak in his natural voice. 

“My mother wanted you to come over for a few min¬ 
utes, there’s something you ’re to know. But if you 
don’t feel well enough—” 

He seemed to brace himself. “Maybe I know it 
already. However, I’m quite able to walk over and hear 
—anything I’m to be told,” he said, composedly. 

In the lighted parlor his face showed up pale and worn, 
and his eyes hollow. But his smile was ready, his voice 
steady, and the hand which received the wine Mary 
Virginia herself brought him, did not tremble. 

“It is to our great, great happiness we wish you to 
drink, old friend,” said Laurence. Intoxicated with his 
new joy, glowing, shining, the boy was magnificent. 

The Butterfly Man turned and looked at him; steadily, 
deliberately, a long, searching, critical look, as if meas¬ 
uring him by a new standard. Laurence stood the test. 
Then the man’s eyes came back to the girl, rose-colored, 
radiant, star-eyed, and lingered upon her. He arose, 
and held up the glass in which our old wine seemed to 
leap upward in little amber-colored flames. 

“You ’ll understand,” said the Butterfly Man, “that 


“EACH IN HIS OWN COIN” 


255 


I haven’t the words handy to my tongue to say what’s 
in my heart. I reckon I’d have to be God for awhile, 
to make all I wish for you two come true.” There was 
in look and tone and manner something so sweet and 
reverent that we were touched and astonished. 

When my mother had peremptorily sent Laurence 
home to the judge, and carried Mary Virginia off to talk 
the rest of the night through, I went back to his rooms 
with John Flint, in spite of the lateness of the hour: 
for I was uneasy about him. 

I think my nearness soothed him. For with that boy¬ 
ish diffident gesture of his he reached over presently and 
held me by the sleeve. 

“Parson,” he asked, abruptly, “is a man born with 
a whole soul, or just a sort of shut-up seed of one? Is 
one given him free, or has he got to earn and pay for one 
before he gets it, parson ? I want to know. ’’ 

“We all want to know that, John Flint. And the 
W*est says Yes, and the East, No.” 

“I’ve been reading a bit,” said he, slowly and 
thoughtfully. ‘ 1 1 wanted to hear what both sides had to 
say. Paul is pretty plain, on his side of the fence. But, 
parson, some chaps that talk as if they knew quite as 
much as Paul does, say you don’t get anything in this 
universe for nothing; you have to pay for what you get. 
As near as I can figure it out, you land here with a chance 
to earn yourself. You can quit or you can go on—it’s 
all up to you. If you ’re a sport and play the game 
straight, why, you stand to win yourself a water-tight 
fire-proof soul. Because, you see, you’ve earned and 
paid for it, parson. That sounded like good sense to 
me. Looked to me as if I was sort of doing it myself. 


256 


SLIPPY McGEE 


But when I began to go deeper into the thing, why, I 
got stuck. For I can’t deny I’d been doing it more 
because I had to than because I wanted to. But—which¬ 
ever way it is, I’m paying! Oh, yes, I’m paying! ’ ’ 

“Ah, but so is everybody else, my son,” said I, sadly. 
“. . . each in his own coin. . . . But after all is n ’t one¬ 
self worth while, whatever the cost?” 

“I don’t know,” said he. “That’s where I’m stuck. 
Is the whole show a skin game or is it worth while ? But, 
parson, whatever it is, you pay a hell of a price when 
you buy yourself on the instalment plan, believe me!” 
his voice broke, as if on a suppressed groan. “If I 
could get it over and done with, pay for my damned 
little soul in one big gob, I would n’t mind. But to have 
to buy what I’m buying, to have to pay what I’m pay¬ 
ing— ” 

“You are ill,” said I, deeply concerned. “I was 
afraid of this.” 

He laughed, more like a croak. 

1 * Sure I’m sick. I’m sick to the core of me, but you 
and Westmoreland can’t dose me. Nobody can do any¬ 
thing for me, I have to do it myself or go under. 
That’s part of paying on the instalment plan, too, 
parson. ’ ’ 

“I don’t think I exactly understand—” 

“No, you wouldn’t. You paid in a lump sum, you 
see. And you got what you got. Whatever it was that 
got you , parson, got the best of the bargain.” His voice 
softened. 

“You are talking in parables,” said I, severely. 

“But I’m not paying iu parables, parson. I’m pay¬ 
ing in me,” said he, grimly. And he laughed again, a 


“EACH IN HIS OWN COIN” 257 

laugh of sheer stark misery that raised a chill echo in 
my heart. His hand crept back to my sleeve. 

“I—can’t always can the squeal,” he whispered. 

‘ ‘ If only I could help you! ’ ’ I grieved. 

“You do,” said he, quickly. “You do, by being you. 
I hang on to you, parson. And say, look here! Don’t 
you think I’m such a hog I can’t find time to be glad 
other folks are happy even if I’m not. If there’s one 
thing that could make me feel any sort of way good, it’s 
to know those two who were made for each other have 
found it out. It sort of makes it look as if some things 
do come right, even if others are rotten wrong. I’m 
glad till it hurts me. I’d like you to believe that.” 

“ I do believe it. And, my son! if you can find time 
to be glad of others’ happiness, without envy, why, 
you ’re bound to come right, because you ’re sound at 
the core.” 

“You reckon I’m worth my price, then, parson!” 

“I reckon you ’re worth your price, whatever it is. I 
don’t worry about you, John Flint.” 

And somehow, I did not. I left him with Kerry’s 
head on his knee. His hand was humanly warm again, 
and the voice in which he told me goodnight was bravely 
steady. He sat erect in his doorway, fronting the night 
like a soldier on guard. If he were buying his soul on 
the instalment plan I was sure he would be able to meet 
the payments, whatever they were, as they fell due. 

v 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE WISHING CURL 

W ITH February the cold that the Butterfly 
Man had wished for came with a vengeance. 
The sky lost its bright blue friendliness and 
changed into a menacing gray, the gray of stormy water. 
Overnight the flowers vanished, leaving our gardens 
stripped and bare, and our birds that had been so gay 
were now but sorry shivering balls of ruffled feathers, 
with no song left in them. When rain came the water 
froze in the wagon-ruts, and ice-covered puddles made 
street-corners dangerous. 

This intense cold, damp, heavy, penetrating, coming 
upon the heels of the unseasonably warm weather, seemed 
to bring to a head all the latent sickness smoldering in 
the mill-parish, for it suddenly burst forth like a con¬ 
flagration. If the Civic League had not already done so 
much to better conditions in the poorer district, we must 
have had a very serious epidemic, as Dr. Westmoreland 
bluntly told the Town Council. 

As it was, things were pretty bad for awhile, and the 
inevitable white hearse moved up and down, stopping 
now at this door, now at that. In one narrow street, I 
remember, it moved in the exact shape of a figure eight 
within the week. I do not like to recall those days. I 
buried the children with the seal of Holy Mother Church 
upon their innocence; I repeated over them ‘ ‘ The Lord 

258 


THE WISHING CURL 


259 


hath given, the Lord hath taken away”—and knew in 
my heart that it was man-made want, the greed of 
money-madness, that had taken them untimely out of 
their mothers’ laps. And the earth was like iron; it 
opened unwillingly to receive the babes of the poor. 

In and out of stricken mill-houses and shabby shacks, 
as regularly as Westmoreland and I, whose business and 
duty lay there, came John Flint. He made no effort to 
comfort parents, although these seemed to derive a curi¬ 
ous consolation from his presence. He did not even come 
because he wanted to; he came because the children 
begged to see the Butterfly Man and one may not refuse 
a sick child. He had made friends with them, made toys 
for them; and now he saw dull eyes brighten at his 
approach and pale faces try to smile; languid and 
fever-hot hands were held out to him. All the force of 
the affection of young children, their dazzling faith, the 
almost unthinkable power upon their plastic minds of 
those whom they trust, came home to him. He could 
not, in such an hour, accept lightly, with a careless smile, 
the fact that children loved him. And once or twice a 
small hand that clung to him grew cold in his clasp, and 
under his eyes a child’s closed to this world. 

Now, something that saw straight, thought like a naked 
sword-blade, ate like a testing acid into shams and hated 
evasions and half-truths and subterfuges, had of late 
been showing more and more behind John Flint’s re¬ 
serve; and I think it might have hardened into a men¬ 
tality cold and bright and barren, hard and cutting as a 
diamond, had it not been for the children whom he had 
to see suffer and die. 

There was one child of whom he was particularly fond 


260 


SLIPPY McGEE 


—a child with the fairest of fair hair, deep and sweet 
blue eyes, and the quickest, shyest, most fleeting of 
smiles to lighten dashingly her small pale serious face. 
She had been one of the first of the mill folks’ children 
to make friends with the Butterfly Man. She used to 
watch for him, and then, holding on to one of his fin¬ 
gers, she liked to trot sedately down the street beside him. 

This child’s going was sudden and rather painful. 
"Westmoreland did what he could, but there was no 
stamina in that frail body, so her’s had been one of the 
small hands to fall limp and still out of John Flint’s. 
The doll he had made for her lay in the crook of her 
arm; it had on a red calico dress, very garish in the 
gray room, and against the child’s whiteness. 

Westmoreland stood, big and compassionate, at the 
foot of the bed. His ruddy face showed wan and behind 
his glasses his gray tired eyes winked and blinked. 

“There must be,” said the Doctor, as if to himself, 
“some eternal vast reservoir somewhere, that stores up 
all this terrible total of unnecessary suffering—the cruel 
and needless suffering inflicted upon children and ani¬ 
mals, in particular. Perhaps it’s a spiritual serum used 
for the saving of the race. Perhaps races higher up than 
we use it—as we use rabbits and guinea-pigs. No, no, 
nothing’s wasted; there’s a forward end to pain, some¬ 
where.” He looked down at the child and shook his 
head doubtfully: 

“But when all is said and done,” he muttered, “what 
do such as these get out of it f Nothing—so far as we 
can see. They ’re victims, they and the innocent beasts, 
thrust into a world which tortures and devours them. 
Why? Why? Why?” 


THE WISHING CURL 261 

“There is nothing to do but leave that everlasting Why 
to God,” said I, painfully. 

The Butterfly Man looked up and one saw that cold 
sword-straight, diamond-hard something in his eyes: 

“Parson,” said he, grimly, “you ’re a million miles 
off the right track—and you know it. Leaving things to 
God—-things like poor kids dying because they ’re gouged 
out of their right to live—is just about as rotten stupid 
and wrong as it can well be. God’s all right; he does 
his part of the job. You do yours, and what happens? 
Why, my butterflies answer that! I’m punk on your 
catechism, and if this is all it can teach I hope I die 
punk on it; but as near as I can make out, original sin 
is leaving things like this”—and he looked at his small 
friend with her doll on her arm—“to God, instead of 
tackling the job yourself and straightening it out.” 

The child’s mother, a gaunt creature without a trace 
of youth left in her, although she could not have been 
much more than thirty, shambled over to a chair on the 
other side of the bed. She wore a faded red calico 
wrapper—a scrap of it had made the doll’s frock—and 
a blue-checked apron with holes in it. Her hair was 
drawn painfully back from her forehead, and there was 
a wispy fringe of it on the back of her scraggy neck. In 
her dull eyes glimmered nothing but the innate uneasi¬ 
ness of those who are always in need, and her mouth had 
drawn itself into the shape of a horseshoe. There is no 
luck in a horseshoe hung thus on a woman’s face. One 
might fancy she felt no emotion, her whole demeanor 
was so apathetic; but of a sudden she leaned over and 
took up one of the thick shining curls; half smiling, she 
began to wrap it about her finger. 


£62 


SLIPPY McGEE 


“I useter be right smart proud o’ Louisa’s hair,” she 
remarked in a drawling, listless voice. ‘ ‘ She come by it 
from them uppidy folks o’ her pa’s. I’ve saw her when 
she was n’t much more ’n hair an ’ eyes, times her pa 
was laid up with the misery in his chest, an’ me with 
nothin’ but piecework weeks on end. 

. . She was a cu’rus kind o’ child, Louisa was. 
She sort o’ ’spicioned things wasn’t right, but you think 
that child ever let a squeal out o ’ her ? Not her! Lemme 
tell you-all somethin’, jest to show what kind o’ a heart 
that child had, suhs.” 

With a loving and mothering motion she moved the 
bright curl about and about her hard finger. She spoke 
half intimately, half garrulously; and from the curl she 
would lift her faded eyes to the Butterfly Man’s. 

‘ * ’T was a Sarrerday night, an ’ I was a-walkin ’ up 
an’ down, account o’ me bein’ awful low in the mind. 

“ ‘Ma,’ says Louisa, ‘I’m reel hungry to-night. You 
reckon I could have a piece o’ bread with butter on it? 
I wisht I could taste some bread with butter on it,’ says 
she. 

“ ‘Darlin’,’ says I, turrible sad, ‘Po’ ma c’n give yo’ 
the naked bread an’ thanks to God I got even that to 
give,’ I says. ‘But they ain’t a scrap o’ butter in this 
house, an’ no knowin’ how to git any. Oh, darlin’, ma’s 
so sorry! ’ 

“She looks up with that quick smile o’ her’n. Yes, 
suh, Mr. Flint, she ups and smiles. ‘You don’t belong 
to be sorry any, ma,’ says she, comfortin’. ‘Don’t you 
mind none at all. Why, ma, darlin’, I just love naked 
bread without no butter on it!’ says she. My God, Mr. 
Flint, I bust out a-cryin’ in her face. Seemed like I 


THE WISHING CURL 


263 


natchelly could n't stand no mo '! ' ' And smiling vaguely 
with her poor old down-curved mouth, she went on fin¬ 
gering the curl. 

“Will you-all look a' that!” she murmured, with pride. 
“Even her hair's lovin', an' sort o’ holds on like it 
wants you should touch it. My Lord o' glory, I'm 
glad her pa ain't livin' to see this day! He had his 
share o’ misery, po' man, him dyin' o’ lung-fever an' 
all. . . . 

“Six head o' young ones we'd had, me an' him. An' 
they'd all dropped off. Come spring, an’ one'd be 
gone. I kep' a-eomfortin’ that man best I could they 
was better off, angels not bein’ pindlin' an' hungry an' 
barefoot, an’ thanks be, they ain’t no mills in heaven. 
But their pa he couldn’t see it thataway nohow. He 
was turrible sot on them children, like us pore folks 
gen'rally is. They was reel fine-lookin' at first. 

“When all the rest of ’em had went, her pa he sort o' 
sot his heart on Louisa here. ‘For we ain't got nothin' 
else, ma,' says he. ‘An’ please the good Lord, we 're 
a-goin’ to give this one book-learnin' an' sich, an' so be 
she '11 miss them mills,' he says. ‘Ma, less us aim to 
make a lady o’ our Louisa. Not that the Lord ain’t 
done it a'ready,' says her pa, ‘but we got to he'p Him 
keep on an' finish the job thorough.' An' here's him 
an’ her both gone, an’ me without a God’s soul belongin' 
to me this day! My God, Mr. Flint, ain't it something 
turrible the things happens to us pore folks ? ’' 

The Butterfly Man looked from her to Westmoreland 
and me: doctor of bodies, doctor of souls, naturalist, what 
had we to say to this woman stripped of all? But she, 
with the greater wisdom of the poor, spoke for herself 


264 SLIPPY McGEE 

and for us. A sort of veiled light crept into her sodden 
face. 

“It ain’t I ain’t grateful to you-all,” said she. “God 
knows I be. You was good to Louisa. Doctor, you re¬ 
member that day you give her a ride in your ottermobile 
an’ forgot to bring her home for more ’n a hour? My, 
but that child was happy! ’ ’ 

“ ‘Ma,’ says she when I come home that night, ‘you 
know what heaven is ? ’ 

“ ‘Child,’ says I, ‘folks like me mostly knows what it 
ain’t.’ 

“ ‘I beat you, ma!’ saj^s she, clappin’ her hands. 
‘Heaven ain’t nothin’ much but country an’ roads an’ 
trees an’ butterflies, an’ things like that,’ says she. ‘An’ 
God’s got ottermobiles, plenty an’ plenty ottermobiles, 
an’ you ride free in ’em long’s you feel like it, ’cause 
that’s what they’s for. An’, ma,’ says she, ‘God’s, 
showfers is all of ’em Dr. Westmorelands and Mr. Flints.’ 
Yes, suh, you-all been mighty kind to Louisa. But I 
reckon,” she drawled, “it was Mr. Flint Louisa loved 
best, him bein’ a childern’s kind o’ man, an’ on account 
o’ Loujaney.” She laid a hand upon the rag doll lying 
on the little girl’s arm. 

“From the first day you give her that doll, Mr. Flint 
—which she named Loujaney, for her an’ me both— 
that child ain’t been parted from it.” She smiled down 
at the two. I could almost have prayed she would weep 
instead. It would have been easier to bear. 

“The King’s Daughters, they give her a mighty nice 
doll off their Christmas tree last year, but Louisa, she 
didn’t take to it like she done to Loujaney. 

“‘That doll’s jest a visitin’ lady,’ says she, ‘but 


THE WISHING CURL 


265 


Loujaney, she’s my child. Mr. Flint made her a-pur- 
pose for me, same’s God made me for you, ma, an’ she’s 
mine by bornation. I can live with Loujaney. I ain’t 
a mite ashamed afore her when we ain’t got nothin’, but 
I turn’t other’s face to the wall so she won’t know. Lou¬ 
janey ’s pore folks same’s you an’ me, an’ she knows 
prezac ’ly how ’t is. That’s why I love her so much. 

“An’ day an’ night,” resumed the drawling voice, 
“them two’s been together. She jest lived an’ et an’ 
slept with that doll. If ever a doll gits to grow feelin’s, 
Loujaney’s got ’em. I s’pose I’d best give that visitin’ 
doll to some child that wants it bad, but I ain’t got the 
heart to take Loujaney away from her ma. I’m a-goin’ 
to let them two go right on sleepin’ together. 

“Mr. Flint, suh, seein’ Louisa liked you so much, an’ 
it’s you she’d want to have it—” she leaned over, 
pushed the thick fair hair aside, and laid her finger upon 
a very whimsy of a curl, shorter, paler, fairer than the 
others, just above the little right ear. 

“Her pa useter call that the wishin’ curl,” said she, 
half apologetically. “You see, suh, he was a comical 
sort of man, an’ a great hand for pertendin’ things. I 
never could pertend. Things is what they is an’ per¬ 
tendin ’ don’t change ’em none. But him an’ her was 
different. That’s how come him to pertend the Lord’d 
put the rainbow’s pot o’ gold in Louisa’s hair with a wish 
in it, an’ that ridic’lous curl one side her head, like a 
mark, was the wishin ’ curl. He’d pertend he could pull 
it twict an’ say whisperin’, ‘ Biclcery-ickery-ee—my wish 
is cornin' to me an’ he’d git it. An’ she liked to per¬ 
tend ’twas so an’ she could wish things on it for me an’ 
git ’em. . . . Clo’es an’ shoes an’ fire an’ cake an’ beef- 


266 SLIPPY McGEE 

steak an’ butter an’ stayin’ home. ... Just pertendin’, 
you see. 

“Mr. Flint, suh, I ain’t got a God’s thing any more 
to wish for, but you bein’ the sort o’ man you are, I’d 
rather ’twas you had Louisa’s wishin’ curl, to remember 
her by.” Snip! went the scissors; and there it lay, pale 
as the new gold of spring sunlight, curling as young 
grape-tendrils, in the Butterfly Man’s open palm. 

. “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give 
I thee,” said the great Apostle to the lame man who 
lay beside the gate of the temple that is called, Beauti¬ 
ful. 

“I ain’t got nothin’ else,” said the common mill- 
woman; and laid in John Flint’s hand Louisa’s wishing- 
curl. 

He stared at it, and turned as pale as the child on 
her pillow. The human pity of the thing, its sheer stark 
piercing simplicity, squeezed his heart as with a great 
hand. 

< ‘ My God! ” he choked. 11 My—God! ’ ’ and a rending 
sob tore loose from his throat. For the first time 
in his life he had to weep; uncontrolled, unashamed, 
childlike, fatherly, brotherly. For he had experienced, 
unselfishly, on account of one of the humblest of God’s 
creatures, one of the great divine emotions. And when 
that happens to a man it is as if his soul were wdnnowed 
by the wind of an archangel’s wings. 

Westmoreland and I slipped out and left him with 
the woman. She would know what further thing to say 
to him. 

Outside in the bleak bitter street, the Doctor laid his 
hand on my shoulder. He winked his eyes rapidly. 


THE WISHING CURE 


26 1 


“Father,” said he, earnestly, “when I witness such a 
thing as we ’ve seen this morning, I do not lose faith. I 
gain it.” And he gripped me heartily with his big 
gloved hand. “Tell John Flint,” he added, “that 
sometimes a rag doll is a mighty big thing for a man to 
have to his credit.” Then he was gone, with a tear freez¬ 
ing on his cheek. 

“Angels,” John Flint had said more than once, 
“are not middle-aged doctors with shoulders on them like 
a barn-door, and ribs like a dray; angels don’t have 
bald heads and wear a red tie and tan shoes. But I’d 
pass them all up, from Gabriel down, wings and tail- 
feathers, for one Walter Westmoreland.” 

I would, too. And I walked along, thinking of what 
I had just witnessed; sensing its true value. To those 
slight and fragile things which had, for John Flint, out¬ 
weighed the scales of evil—a gray moth, a butterfly’s 
wing, a bird’s nest—I added a child’s fair hair, and a 
rag doll that was going to sleep with its ma. 

There were but few people on the freezing streets, for 
folks preferred to stay indoors and hug the fire. Front¬ 
ing the wind, I walked with a lowered head, and thus 
collided with a lady who turned a corner at the same time 
I did. 

“Don’t apologize, Padre,” said Mary Virginia, for it 
was she. “It was my fault—I wasn’t looking where I 
was going.” 

‘ ‘ Are you by any chance bound for the Parish House ? 
Because my mother will be on her way to a poor thing 
that’s just lost her only child. Where have you been 
these past weeks? I haven’t seen you for ages.” 

“Oh, I’ve been rather busy, too, Padre. And I 


268 


SLIPPY McGEE 


haven’t been quite well—” she hesitated. I thought I 
understood. For, possibly from some servant who had 
overheard Mrs. Eustis expostulating with her daughter, 
the news of Mary Virginia’s unannounced engagement 
had sifted pretty thoroughly throughout the length and 
breadth of Appleboro; a town where an unfledged and 
callow rumor will start out of a morning and come home 
to roost at night with talons and tailfeathers. 

That Mary Virginia had all James Eustis’s own quiet 
will-power, everybody knew. She would not, perhaps, 
marry Laurence in the face of her mother’s open oppo¬ 
sition. Neither would she marry anybody else to please 
her mother in defiance of her own heart. There was a 
pretty struggle ahead, and Appleboro took sides for and 
against, and settled itself with eager expectancy to watch 
the outcome. 

So I concluded that Mary Virginia had not been hav¬ 
ing a pleasant time. Indeed, it struck me that she was 
really unwell. One might even suspect she had known 
sleepless nights, from the shadowed eyes and the languor 
of her manner. 

Just then, swinging down the street head erect, shoul¬ 
ders square, the freezing weather only intensifying his 
glowing fairness, came Howard Hunter. The man was 
clear red and white. His gold hair and beard glittered, 
his bright blue eyes snapped and sparkled. He seemed 
to rejoice in the cold, as if some Viking strain in him 
delighted in its native air. 

As he paused to greet us a coldne,:s not of the weather 
crept into Mary Virginia’s eyes. She did not speak, but 
bowed formally. Mr. Hunter, holding her gaze for a 
moment, lifted his brows whimsically and smiled; then, 




THE WISHING CURL 269 

bowing, he passed on. She stood looking after him, her 
lips closed firmly upon each other. 

Tucking her hand in my arm, she walked with me to 
the Parish House gate. No, she said, she could n’t come 
in. But I was to give her regards to the Butterfly Man, 
and her love to Madame. 

‘ ‘ Parson/’ the Butterfly Man asked me that night, 
“have you seen Mary Virginia recently ?” 

“I saw her to-day.” 

“I saw her to-day, too. She looked worried. She 
hasn’t been here lately, has she?” 

“No. She hasn’t been feeling well. I hear Mrs. 
Eustis has been very outspoken about the engagement, 
and I suppose that’s what worries Mary Virginia. ’ ’ 

11 1 don’t think so. She knew she had to go up against 
that, from the first. She’s more than a match for her 
mother. There’s something else. Didn’t I tell you I 
had a hunch there was going to be trouble? Well, I ’ve 
got a hunch it’s here.” 

“Nonsense!” said I, shortly. 

‘ ‘ I know, ’ ’ said he, stubbornly. And he added, irrele¬ 
vantly : “It’s generally known, parson, that Eustis will 
be nominated. Inglesby’s managed to gain considerable 
ground, thanks to Hunter, and folks say if it was n’t for 
Eustis he’d win. As it is, he ’ll be swamped. I hear 
he was thunderstruck when he got wind of what Mayne 
was going to play against him—for he knows Laurence 
brought Eustis out. Inglesby’s mighty sore. He’s the 
sort that hates to have to admit he can’t get what he 
wants. ’ ’ 

“Then he’d better save himself the trouble of having 
to put it to the test, ’ ’ said I. 


£70 


SLIPPY McGEE 


“I ? m wondering,’’ said John Flint. “I wish I 
hadn’t got that hunch!” 

I did not see Mary Virginia again for some time. 
Just then I moved breathlessly in a horrid round of 
sickbeds, for the wave had reached its height; already it 
had swept seventeen of my flock out of time into eternity. 

I came home on one of the last of those heavy evenings, 
to And Laurence waiting for me in my study. He was 
standing in the middle of the room, his hands clasped 
behind his back. 

“Padre,” said he by way of greeting, 4 ‘have you seen 
Mary Virginia lately? Has Madame?” 

‘‘No, except for a chance meeting one morning on the 
street. But she has been sending me help right along, 
bless her.” 

“Has Madame heard anything from her, Padre?” 

“No, I don’t think so. But we’ve been frightfully 
busy of late, you understand.” 

“No, neither of you know,” said Laurence, in a low 
voice. “You wouldn’t know. Padre, I—don’t look at 
me like that, please; I’m not ill. But, without reason— 
I swear to you before God, without any reason whatever, 
that I can conjure up—she has thrown me over, jilted 
me—Mary Virginia, Padre! And I’m to forget her. 
I ’m to forget her, you understand? Because she can’t 
marry me.” He spoke in a level, quiet, matter of fact 
voice. Then laughter shook him like a nausea. 

I laid my hand upon him. “Now tell me,” said I, 
“what you have to tell me.” 

“I’ve really told you all I know,” said Laurence. 
‘ ‘ Day before yesterday she sent for me. You can’t think 
how happy it made me to have her send for me, how 


THE WISHING CURL 


271 


happy I’ve been since I knew she cared! I felt as if 
there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do. There was noth¬ 
ing too great to be accomplished— 

** Well, I went. She was standing in the middle of the 
long drawing-room. There was a fire behind her. She 
was so like ice I wonder now she didn’t thaw. All in 
white, and cold, and frozen. And she said she could n’t 
marry me. That’s why she had sent for me—to tell me 
that she meant to break our engagement: Mary Virginia! 

“I wanted to know why. I was within my rights in 
asking that, was I not? And she wouldn’t let me get 
close to her, Padre. She waved me away. I got out of 
her that there were reasons: no, she wouldn’t say what 
those reasons were; but there were reasons. Her reasons, 
of course. When I began to talk, to plead with her, 
she begged me not to make things harder for her, but to 
be generous and go away. She just couldn’t marry me, 
did n’t I understand ? So I must release her.’’ 

He hung his head. The youth of him had been dimmed 
and darkened. 

“And you said—?” 

“I said,” said Laurence simply, “that she was mine 
as much as I was hers, and that I’d go just then because 
she asked me to, but I was coming back. I tried to 
see her again yesterday. She wouldn’t see me. She 
sent down word she wasn’t at home. But I knew all 
along she was. Mary Virginia, Padre! 

“I tried again. I haven’t got any pride where she’s 
concerned. Why should I? She’s—she’s my soul, I 
think. I can’t put it into words, because you can’t 
put feelings into words, but she’s the pith of life. Then 
I wrote her. Half a dozen times I wrote her. I got 


272 


SLIPPY McGEE 


down to the level of bribing the colored maid to take the 
notes to her, one every hour, like a medicine, and slip 
them under her door. I know she received them. I re¬ 
peated it again to-day. It’s Mary Virginia at stake, 
and I can’t take chances, can I ? And this afternoon she 
sent this. 

“Oh, Laurence, be generous and spare me the torment of ques¬ 
tions. So far you have not reproached me; spare me that, too! 
Don’t you understand? I cannot marry you. Accept the in¬ 
evitable as I do. Forgive me and forget me. M. V. E.” 

The writing showed extreme nervousness, haste, agi¬ 
tation. 

“Well?” said Laurence. But I stood staring at the 
crumpled bit of paper. I knew what I knew. I knew 
what my mother had thought fit to reveal to me of the 
girl’s feelings: Mary Virginia had been very sure. I re¬ 
membered what my eyes had seen, my ears heard. I was 
sure she was faithful, for I knew my girl. And yet— 

There came back to me a morning in spring and I 
riding gaily off in the glad sunshine, full of faith and 
of hope. To find what I had found. I handed the note 
back, in silence. 

“Oh, why, why, why?” burst out the boy, in a gust 
of acute torment. “For God’s sake, why? Think of 
her eyes and her mouth, Padre—and her forehead like a 
saint’s— No, she’s not false. God never made such 
eyes as hers untruthful. I believe in her. I’ve got to 
believe in her. I tell you, I belong to her, body and 
soul.” He began to walk up and down the room, and 
his shoulders twitched, as if a lash were laid over them. 

“I could forgive her for not loving me, if she doesn’t 
love me and found it out, and said so. Women change, 


THE WISHING CURL 273 

do they not? But—to take a man that loves her—and 
tear his living soul to shreds and tatters— 

“If she’s a liar and a jilt, who and what am I to be¬ 
lieve? "Why should she do it, Padre—to me that love 
her? Oh, my God, think of it: to be betrayed by the 
best beloved ! No, I can’t think it. This is n’t just any 
light girl: this is Mary Virginia!” 

I put my hand on his shoulder. He is a head over 
me, and once again as broad, perhaps. We two fell into 
step. I did not attempt to counsel or console. 

“Here I come like a whining kid, Padre,” said he, re¬ 
morsefully, “piling my troubles upon your shoulders that 
carry such burdens already. Forgive me!” 

“I shouldn’t be able to forgive you if you didn’t 
come,” said I. Up and down the little room, up and 
down, the two of us. 

Came a light tap at the door. The Butterfly Man’s 
head followed it. 

“Didn’t I hear Laurence talking?” asked he, smiling. 
The smile froze at sight of the boy’s face. He closed the 
door, and leaned against it. 

“What’s wrong with her?” he asked, quickly. It did 
not occur to us to question his right to ask, or to wonder 
how he knew. 

In a dull voice Laurence told him. He held out his 
hand for the note, read it in silence, and handed it back. 

“What do you make of it?” I asked. 

“Trouble,” said he, curtly; and he asked, reproach¬ 
fully, “Don’t you know her, both of you, by this 
time?” 

“I know,” said Laurence, “that she has sent me away 
from her.” 


274 


SLIPPY McGEE 


‘‘Because she wants to, or because she thinks she has 
tot” asked John Flint. 

“Why should she do so unless it pleased her?” I asked 
sorrowfully. 

His eyes flashed. “Why, she’s herself! A girl like 
her could n’t play anybody false because there’s no false¬ 
ness in her to do it with. What are you going to do 
about it?” 

“There is nothing to do,” said Laurence, “but to re¬ 
lease her; a gentleman can do no less.” 

John Flint’s lips curled. “Release her? I’d hang 
on till hell froze over and caught me in the ice! I’d 
wait. I’d write and tell her she didn’t need to make 
herself unhappy about me, I was unhappy enough about 
her for the two of us, because she didn’t trust me 
enough to tell me what her trouble was, so I could help 
her. That first and always I was her friend, right here, 
whenever she needed me and whatever she needed me 
for. And I’d stand by. What else is a man good for ? ’ ’ 

“I believe,” said I, “that John Flint has given you the 
right word, Laurence. Just hold fast and be faithful.” 

Laurence lifted his haggard face. “There isn’t any 
question of my being faithful to her, Padre. And I 
couldn’t make myself believe that she’s less so than I. 
What Flint says tallies with my own intuition. I ’ll 
write her to-night.” He laid his hand on John Flint’s 
arm. “You ’re all right, Bughunter,” said he, earnestly. 
“ ’Night, Padre.” Then he was gone. 

“Do you think,” said John Flint, when he had re¬ 
jected every conjecture his mind presented as the possi¬ 
ble cause of Mary Virginia’s action, “that Inglesby could 
be at the bottom of this ? ’ 9 


THE WISHING CURL 


275 


“I think,” said I, “that you have an obsession where 
that man is concerned. He is a disease with you. Good 
heaven, what could Inglesby possibly have to do with 
Mary Virginia’s affairs?” 

“That’s what I’m wondering. Well, then, who is 
it?” 

“Perhaps,” said I, unwillingly, “it is Mary Virginia 
herself. ’ ’ 

“Forget it! She’s not that sort.” 

“She is a woman.” 

“Ain’t it the truth, though?” he jeered. “What a 
peach of a reason for not acting like herself, looking like 
herself, being lik 8 herself! She’s a woman! So are all 
the rest of the folks that weren’t born men, if you ’ll 
notice. They ’re women; we ’re men: and both of us 
are people. Get it?” 

“I get it,” said I, annoyed. “Your attitude, John 
Flint, is a vulgar platitude. And permit me to—” 

“I ’ll permit you to do anything except get cross,” 
said he, quickly. The ghost of a smile touched his face. 
“Being bad-tempered, parson, suits you just about as 
well as plaid pants and a Hello Bill button.” 

“I am a human being,” I began, frigidly. 

“And I’m another. And so is Mary Virginia. And 
there we are, parson. I’m troubled. I don’t like the 
looks of things. It’s no use telling myself this is none 
of my business; it is very much my business. You re¬ 
member . . . when I came here . . .” he hesitated, for 
this is a subject we do not like to discuss, “what you 
were up against . . . parson, I’ve thought you must 
have been caught and crucified yourself, and learned 
things on the cross, and that’s why you held on to me. 


276 


SLIPPY McGEE 


But with the kids, it was different—particularly the little 
girl. The first thing I ever got from her was a lovely 
look, the first time ever I set eyes on her she came with 
an underwing moth. I’d be a poor sort that wouldn’t 
be willing to be spilt like water and scattered like dust, 
if she needed me now, would n’t I ? ” 

“But,” said I, perplexed, “what can you do? A 
young lady has seen fit to break her engagement; young 
ladies often see fit to do that, my dear fellow. This is n’t 
an uncommon case. Also, one doesn’t interfere in a 
lady’s private affairs, not even when one is an old priest 
who has loved her since her childhood, nor yet a Butterfly 
Man who is her devoted friend. Don’t you see?” 

“ I see there’s something wrong, ’ ’ said he, doggedly. 

“Perhaps. But that doesn’t give one the right 
to pry into something she evidentl r doesn’t wish to re¬ 
veal,” I told him. 

“I suppose,” said he, heavily, “you are right. But 
if you hear anything, let me know, won’t you ? ’ ’ 

I promised; but I found out nothing, save that it had 
not been Mrs. Eustis who influenced her daughter’s 
action. This came out in a call Mrs. Eustis made at the 
Parish House. 

“My dear,” she told my mother, “when she told me 
she had broken that engagement, I was astounded! But 
I can’t say I wasn’t pleased. Laurence is a dear boy; 
and his family’s as good as ours—no one can take that 
away from the Maynes. But Mary Virginia should have 
done better. 

“I quarreled with her, argued with her, pleaded with 
her. I cried and cried. But she’s James Eustis to the 


THE WISHING CURL 


m 

life—you might as well try to move the Rock of Gibral¬ 
tar. Then one morning she came to my room and told 
me she found she couldn’t marry Laurence! And she 
had already told him so, and broken her engagement, 
and I wasn’t to ask her any questions. I didn’t. I 
was too glad.” 

“And—Laurence—f” asked my mother, ironically. 

“Laurence? Laurence is a man. Men get over that 
sort of thing. I’ve known a man to be perfectly mad 
over his wife—and marry, six months after her death. 
They ’re like that. They always get over it. It’s their 
nature. ’ ’ 

“Let us hope, then, for Laurence’s peace of mind,” 
said my mother, “that he ’ll get over it—like all the rest 
of his sex. Though I should n’t call Laurence fickle, or 
faithless, if you ask me.” 

“He is a very fine boy. I always liked him myself 
and James adores him. If I had two or three daughters, 
I’d be willing to let one of them marry Laurence— 
after awhile. But having only one I must say I want 
her to do better.” 

“I see,” said my mother. To me she said later: 

“And yet, Armand, although I condemn it, I can quite 
appreciate Mrs. Eustis’s point of view. I was somewhat 
like that myself, once upon a time. ’ ’ 

“You? Never!” 

My mother smiled tolerantly. 

“Ah, but you never offered me a daughter-in-law I 
did not relish. It was much easier for me to bear the 
Church!” 

That night I went over to John Flint’s, for I thought 


278 


SLIPPY McGEE 


that the fact of Mary Virginia’s deliberately choosing to 
act as she had done would in a measure settle the mat¬ 
ter and relieve his anxiety. 

There was a cedar wood fire before which Kerry lay 
stretched; little white Pitache, grown a bit stiff of late, 
occupied a chair he had taken over for his own use and 
from which he refused to be dislodged. Major Cart¬ 
wright had just left, and the room still smelt of his 
cigar, mingling pleasantly with the clean smell of the 
burning cedar. 

On the table, within reach of his hand, was ranged the 
Butterfly Man’s entire secular library: Andrew Lang’s 
translation of Homer; Omar; Richard Burton’s Kasi- 
dah; Saadi’s Gulistan, over which he chuckled; Robert 
Burns; Don Quixote; Joan of Arc, and Huckleberry 
Finn; Treasure Island; the Bible Miss Sally Ruth had 
given him—I never could induce him to change it for 
my own Douai version—; one or two volumes of Shake¬ 
speare; the black Obituary Book, grown loathsomely 
fat; and the “Purely Original Verse of James Gordon 
Coogler,” which a light-minded professor of mathe¬ 
matics at the University of South Carolina had given 
him, and in which he evilly delighted. Other books came 
and went, but these remained. To-night it was the 
Bible which lay open, at the Book of Psalms. 

“Look at this.” He laid his finger on a verse of the 
nineteenth: ‘ 1 The testimony of the Lord is sure, mak¬ 
ing wise the simple.” 

“The times I’ve turned that over in my mind, out in 
the woods by night and the fields by day!” said the 
Butterfly Man, musingly. “The simple is me, parson, 
and the testimony is green things growing, and butter- 


THE WISHING CURL 


279 


flies and moths, and Kerry, and people, and trouble, and 
Louisa’s hair, and—well, about everything, I reckon. 

“Yes, everything’s testimony, and it can make wise 
the simple—if he’s not too simple. I reckon, parson, 
the simple is lumped in three lots—the fool for a little 
while, the fool for half the day, and the life-everlasting 
twenty-four-hours-a-day, dyed-in-the-wool damn-fool. 

“Some of us are the life-everlasting kind, the kind 
that used to make old man Solomon wall his eyes and 
throw fits and then get busy and hatch out proverbs with 
stings in their tails. A lot of us are half-the-day fools; 
and all the rest are fools for a little while. There’s no¬ 
body born that has n’t got his times and seasons for being 
a fool for a while. But that’s the sort of simple the 
testimony slams some sense into. Like me,” he added 
earnestly, and closed the great Book. 

I told him presently what I had heard; that, as he 
surmised, Mrs. Eustis was not responsible for Mary Vir¬ 
ginia’s change of mind—or perhaps of heart. He 
nodded. But he offered no comment. Now, since I had 
come in, he had been from time to time casting at me 
rather speculative and doubtful glances. He drummed 
on the table, smiled sheepishly, and presently reached 
for a package, unwrapped it, and laid before me a book. 

* 4 ‘ The Relation of Insect Life to Human Society, ’ ” I 
read, “By John Flint and Rev. Armand Jean De Ranee. 
With notes and drawings by Father De Ranee.’’ It bore 
the imprint of a great publishing house. 

“You suggested it more than once,” said John Flint. 
“Off and on, these two years, I’ve been working on it. 
All the notes I particularly asked you for were for this. 
Mighty fine and acute notes they are, too—you’d never 


280 


SLIPPY McGEE 


have been willing to do it if yon’d known they were for 
publication—I know you. And I saved the drawings. 
I’m vain of those illustrations. Abbot’s weren’t in it, 
next to yours.” 

As a matter of fact I have a pretty talent for copying 
plant and insect. I have but little originality, but this 
very limitation made the drawings more valuable. They 
were almost painfully exact, the measurements and color¬ 
ation being as approximately perfect as I could get 
them. 

Now that the book has been included in all standard 
lists I need n’t speak of it at length—the reviewers have 
given it what measure of bricks and bouquets it deserved. 
But it is a clever, able, comprehensive book, and that is 
why it has made its wide appeal. 

Every least credit that could possibly be given to me, 
he had scrupulously rendered. He had made full use of 
note and drawing. He made light enough of his own 
great labor of compilation, but his preface was quick to 
state his “great indebtedness to his patient and wise 
teacher.” 

One sees that the situation was not without irony. 
But I could not cloud his pleasure in my co-authorsliip 
nor dim his happiness by disclaiming one jot or tittle of 
what he had chosen to accredit me with. It is more 
blessed to give than to receive, but much more difficult 
to receive than to give. 

“Do you like it?” he asked, hopefully. 

“I am most horribly proud of it,’’ said I, honestly. 

“Sure, parson? Hand on your heart?” 

“Sure. Hand on my heart.” 

“All right, then,” said he, sighing with relief. 




THE WISHING CURL 


281 


‘ * Here’s your share of the loot,” and he pushed a check 
across the table. 

“But—” I hesitated, blinking, for it was a check of 
sorts. 

1 ‘ But nothing. Blow it in. Say, I’m curious. What 
are you going to do with yours?” 

“What are you going to do with yours?” I asked in 
return. 

He reddened, hesitated; then his head went up. 

“I figure it, parson, that by way of that rag-doll I’m 
kin to Louisa’s ma. As near as I can get to it, Louisa’s 
ma’s my widow. It’s a devil of a responsibility for a 
live man to have a widow. It worries him. Just to get 
her off my mind I’m going to invest my share of this 
book for her. She ’ll at least be sure of a roof and fire 
and shoes and clothes and bread with butter on it and 
staying home sometimes. She ’ll have to work, of course; 
anyway you looked at it, it wouldn’t be right to take 
work away from her. She ’ll work, then; but she won’t 
be worked. Louisa’s managed to pull something out of 
her wishin’ curl for her ma, after all. I’m sure I hope 
they ’ll let the child know.” 

I could not speak for a moment; but as I looked at 
him, the red in his tanned cheek deepened. 

“As a matter of fact, parson,” he explained, “some¬ 
body ought to do something for a woman that looks like 
that, and it might just as well be me. I’m willing to 
pay good money to have my widow turn her mouth the 
other way up, and I hope she ’ll buy a back-comb for 
those bangs on her neck.” 

“And all this,” said I, “came out of one little wishin’ 
curl, Butterfly Man?” 


SLIPPY McGEE 


282 


“But what else could I do?” he wondered, “when 
I’m kin to Loujaney by bornation?” and to hide his 
feeling, he asked again: 

“Now what are you going to do with yours?” 

I reflected. I watched his clever, quizzical eyes, out 
of which the diamond-bright hardness had vanished, and 
into which I am sure that dear child’s curl had wished 
this milder, clearer light. 

“You want to know what I am going to do with 
mine?” said I, airily. “Well; as for me, the very first 
thing 1 am going to do is to purchase, in perpetuity, a 
fine new lamp for St. Stanislaus!” 


CHAPTER XV 


IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT 

T IMID tentative rifts and wedges of blue had 
ventured back into the cold gray sky, and a 
stout-hearted robin or two heralded spring. 
One morning coming from mass I saw in the thin watery 
sunshine the painted wings of the Red Admiral flash by, 
and I welcomed him as one welcomes the long-missed face 
of a friend. I cannot choose but love the Red Admiral. 
He has always stirred my imagination, for frail as his 
gay wings are they have nevertheless borne this daunt¬ 
less small Columbus of butterflies across unknown seas 
and around uncharted lands, until like his twin-sister 
the Painted Lady he has all but circled the globe. A 
few days later a handful of those gold butterflies that 
resemble nothing so much as new bright dandelions in 
the young grass, dared the unfriendly days before their 
time as if to coax the lagging spring to follow. 

The sad white streamers disappeared from doors and 
for a space the little white hearse ceased to go glimmer¬ 
ing by. Then at many windows appeared small faces 
bearing upon them the mark of the valley of the shadow 
through which they had just passed. Although they 
were on side streets in the dingy mill district, far re¬ 
moved from our pleasant windows that looked out upon 
trees and flowers, all Appleboro was watching these wan 
visages with wiser and kinder eyes. 

283 


284 


SLIPPY McGEE 


Perhaps the most potent single factor in the arousing 
of our civic conscience was a small person who might 
have justly thought we hadn’t any: I mean Loujaney’s 
little ma, whose story had crept out and gone from lip 
to lip and from home to home, making an appeal to which 
there could be no refusal. 

When Major Cartwright heard it, the high-hearted 
old rebel hurried over to the Parish House and thrust 
into my hand a lean roll of bills. And the major is by 
no means a rich man. 

1 ‘It ’s not tainted money,” said the major, “though 
some mighty good Bourbon is goin’ to turn into pap on 
account of it. However, it’s an ill wind that does n’t 
blow somebody good—Marse Robert can come on back 
upstairs now an’ thaw himself out while watchin’ me 
read the Lamentations of Jeremiah—who was evidently 
sufferin’ from a dry spell himself.” 

On the following Sunday the Baptist minister chose 
for his text that verse of Matthew which bids us take 
heed that we despise not one of these little ones because 
in heaven their angels do always behold the face of our 
Father. And then he told his people of that little one 
who had pretended to love dry bread when she could n’t 
get any butter—in Appleboro. And who had gone to 
her rest holding to her thin breast a rag-doll that was 
kin to her by bornation, Loujaney being poor folks her¬ 
self and knowing prezactly how ’t was. 

Over the heads of loved and sheltered children the 
Baptist brethren looked at each other. Of course, it 
was n’t their fault any more than anybody else’s.—In a 
very husky voice their pastor went on to tell them of 
the curl which the woman who had n’t a God’s thing left 


IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT 285 


to wish for had given as a remembrance to “that good 
and kind man, our brother John Flint, sometimes known 
as the Butterfly Man.” 

Dabney put the plain little discourse into print and 
heightened its effect by an editorial couched in the plain¬ 
est terms. We were none of us in the humor to hear 
a spade called an agricultural implement just then, and 
Dabney knew it; particularly when the mill dividends 
and the cemetery both showed a marked increase. 

Something had to be done, and quickly, but we didn’t 
exactly know how nor where to begin doing it. Lau¬ 
rence, insisting that this was really everybody’s busi¬ 
ness, called a mass-meeting at the schoolhouse, and the 
Clarion requested every man who didn’t intend to 
bring his women-folks to that meeting to please stay 
home himself. Wherefore Appleboro town and county 
came with the wife of its bosom—or maybe the wife came 
and fetched it along. 

Laurence called the meeting to order, and his manner 
of addressing the feminine portion of his audience would 
have made his gallant grandfather challenge him. He 
had n’ta solitary pretty phrase to tickle the ears of the 
ladies—he spoke of and to them as women. 

“And did you see how they fell for him?” rejoiced 
the Buttei'fly Man, afterward. “From the kid in a 
middy up to the great old girl with three chins and a 
prow like an ocean liner, they were with him. When 
you ’re in dead earnest, can the ladies; just go after 
women as women and they ’re with you every time. 
They know.” 

A Civic Leaguer followed Laurence, then Madame, and 
after her a girl from the mills, whose two small brothers 


286 


SLIPPY McGEE 


went in one night. There were no set speeches. Every¬ 
body who spoke had something to say; and everybody 
who had something to say spoke. Then Westmoreland, 
who like Saul the king was taller by the head and 
shoulders than all Israel, bulked up big and good and 
begged us to remember that we could n’t do anything of 
permanent value until we first learned how to reach those 
folks we had been ignoring and neglecting. He said 
gruffly that Appleboro had dumped its whole duty in 
this respect upon the frail shoulders of one old priest, 
and that the Guest Rooms were overworked. Did n’t the 
town want to do its share now ? The town voted, unan¬ 
imously, that it did. 

There was a pause. Laurence asked if anybody else 
had anything to say ? Apparently, anybody else had n’t. 

4 ‘Well, then,” said Laurence, smiling, “before we ad¬ 
journ, is there anybody in particular that Appleboro 
County here assembled wants to hear ? ’ ’ 

And at that came a sort of stir, a murmur, as of an 
immense multitude of bees: 

“The Butterfly Man!” And louder: “The Butterfly 
Man!” 

Followed a great hand-clapping, shrill whistles, the 
stamping of feet. And there he was, with Westmoreland 
and Laurence behind him as if to keep him from bolting. 
His face expressed a horrified astonishment. Twice, 
thrice, he opened his lips, and no words came. Then: 

“I?” in a high and agonized falsetto. 

“You!” Appleboro County settled back with rustles 
of satisfaction. “Speech! Speech!” From a corn- 
club man, joyfully. 


IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT 287 


“Oh, marmar, look! It's the Butterfly Man, mar- 
mar !” squealed a child. 

“A-a-h! Talk weeth us, Meester Fleent!” For the 
first time a “hand” felt that he might speak out openly 
in Appleboro. 

John Flint stood there staring owlishly at all these 
people who ought to know very well that he had n’t any¬ 
thing to say: what should he have to say ? He was em¬ 
barrassed; he was also most horribly frightened. But 
then, after all, they weren’t anything but people, just 
folks like himself! When he remembered that his panic 
subsided. For a moment he reflected; as if satisfied, 
he nodded slightly and thrust his hand into his breast 
pocket. 

“Instead of having to listen to me you’d better just 
look at this, ’ ’ said the Butterfly Man. * ‘ Because this can 
talk louder and say more in a minute than I could be¬ 
tween now and Judgment.” And he held out Louisa’s 
dear fair whimsy of a curl; the sort of curl mothers tuck 
behind a rosy ear of nights, and fathers lean to and kiss. 
“I haven’t got anything to say,” said the Butterfly 
Man. “The best I can do is just to wish for the children 
all that Louisa pretended to pull out of her wishin’ curl 
—and never got. I wish on it that all the kids get a 
square deal—their chance to grow and play and be 
healthy and happy and make good. And I wish again, 
said the Butterfly Man, looking at his hearers with his 
steady eyes, “I wish that you folks, every God-blessed 
one of you, will help to make that wish come true, so far 
as lies in your power, from now until you die!” His 
funny, twisty smile flashed out. He put the fairy tress 


288 


SLIPPY McGEE 


back into his breast pocket, made a casual gesture to 
imply that he had concluded his wishes for the present; 
and walked off in the midst of the deepest silence that 
had ever fallen upon an Appleboro audience. 

But however willing we might be, we discovered that 
we could not do things as quickly or as well as might 
be wished. People who wanted to help blundered tact¬ 
lessly. People who wanted to be helped had to be in¬ 
vestigated. People who ought to be helped were sus¬ 
picious and resentful, couldn’t always understand or 
appreciate this sudden interest in their affairs, were in¬ 
clined to slam doors, or, when cornered, to lie stolidly, 
with wooden faces and expressionless eyes. 

Ensued an awkward pause, until the Butterfly Man 
came unobtrusively forward, discovering in himself that 
amazing diplomacy inherent in the Irish when they 
attend to anybody’s business but their own. It was 
amusing to watch the only democrat in a solidly Demo¬ 
cratic county infusing something of his own unabashed 
humanness into proceedings which but for him might 
have sloughed into 

Organized charity, carefully iced, 

In the name of a cautious, statistical Christ. 

Having done what was to be done, he went about his 
own affairs. Nobody gushed over him, and he escaped 
that perilous popularity which is as a millstone around 
a man’s neck. Nevertheless the Butterfly Man had 
stumbled upon the something divine in his fellows, and 
they entertained for him a feeling that was n’t any more 
tangible, say, than pure air, and no more emotional than 
pure water, but was just about as vital and life-giving. 


IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT 289 


I was enchanted to have a whole county endorse my 
private judgment. I rose so in my own estimation that 
I fancy I was a bit condescending to St. Stanislaus! I 
was vain of the Butterfly Man’s standing—folks could n’t 
like him too much, to please me. And I was greatly 
interested in the many invitations that poured in upon 
him, invitations that ranged all the w^ay from a birthday 
party at Michael Karski’s to a state dinner at the 
Eustis’s. 

From Michael ’s he came home gaily, a most outrageous 
posy pinned upon him by way of honor, and whistling 
a Slavic love song so dismal that one inferred love must 
be something like toothache for painfulness. He had 
had such a bully time, he told me. Big Jan had been 
there with his wife, an old friend of Michael’s Katya. 
Although pale, and still somewhat shaky as to legs, Jan 
had willingly enough shaken hands with his conqueror. 

It seemed quite right and natural that he and Jan 
should presently enter into a sort of Dual Alliance. 
Meester Fleent was to be Arbitrator Extraordinary. 
When he stipulated that thereafter Big Jan was only to 
tackle a man his own size, everybody cheered madly, and 
Mrs. Jan herself beamed red-eyed approval. She said 
her prayers to the man who had trounced Jan into 
righteousness. 

But from the Eustis dinner, to which he went with 
my mother, he came home somber and heavy-hearted. 
Laurence was conspicuously absent; it is true he was 
away, defending his first big case in another part of the 
State. But Mr. George Inglesby was just as conspic¬ 
uously present, apparently on the best of all possible 
terms with himself, the world in general, and Mrs. James 


290 


SLIPPY McGEE 


Eustis in particular. His presence in that house, in 
the face of persistent rumors, made at least two guests 
uneasy. Mrs. Eustis showed him a most flattering atten¬ 
tion. She was deeply impressed by him. He had just 
aided her pet mission in China—what he had given the 
heathen would have buttered my children’s bread for 
many a day. Also, he was all but lyrical in his voicing 
of the shibboleth that Woman’s Sphere is the Home, 
wherein she should be adored, enshrined, and protected. 
Woman and the Home! All the innate chivalry of 
Southern manhood— 

I don’t know that Louisa’s Ma was ever enshrined 
or protected by the chivalry of any kind of manhood, 
no, nor any of the mill women. Their kind don’t know 
the word. But Mrs. Eustis was, and she agreed with 
Mr. Inglesby’s noble sentiments. 

‘‘Parson, you should have heard him!” raved the But¬ 
terfly Man. “There’s a sort of man down here that’s 
got chivalry like another sort’s got hookworm, and he 
makes the man that has n’t got either want to set up an 
image to the great god Dam! 

“You’d think being chivalrous would be enough for 
him, wouldn’t you?” continued the Butterfly Man, bit¬ 
terly. “Nix! What’s he been working the heavy char¬ 
ity lay for, except that it’s his turn to be a misunder¬ 
stood Christian? Doesn’t charity cover a multitude of 
skins, though? And doesn’t it beat a jimmy when it 
comes to breaking into society! ’ ’ 

Mary Virginia, he added in an altered voice, had been 
exquisite in a frock all silver lace and shimmery stuffs 
like moonbeams, and with a rope of pearls about her 
throat, and in her black hair. Appleboro folks do not 


IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT 291 


affect orchids, but Mary Virginia wore a huge cluster 
of those exotics. She had been very gracious to the But- 
erfly Man and Madame. But only for a brief bright 
minute had she been the Mary Virginia they knew. All 
the rest of the evening she seemed to grow statelier, 
colder, more dazzlingly and imperially regal. And her 
eyes were like frozen sapphires under her level brows, 
and her mouth was the red splendid bow of Pride. 

Watching her, my mother was pained and puzzled; as 
for the Butterfly Man, his heart went below zero. Those 
who loved Mary Virginia had cause for painful re¬ 
flections. 

Blinded by her beauty, were we judging her by the 
light of affection, instead of the colder light of reason? 
We couldn’t approve of her behavior to Laurence, nor 
was it easy to refrain from disapproval of what appeared 
to be a tacit endurance of Inglesby’s attention. She 
couldn’t plead ignorance of what was open enough to 
be town talk-—the man’s shameless passion for herself, 
a passion he seemed to take delight in flaunting. And 
she made no effort to explain; she seemed deliberately 
to exclude her old friends from the confidence once so 
freely given. She had n’t visited the Parish House since 
she had broken her engagement. 

And all the while the spring that hadn’t time for the 
little concerns of mortals went secretly about her im¬ 
mortal business of rejuvenation. The blue that had been 
so timid and so tentative overspread the sky; more robins 
came, and after them bluebirds and redbirds and Peter- 
birds, and the impudent screaming robber jay that is 
so beautiful and so bold, and flute-voiced vireos, and nut- 


292 


SLIPPY McGEE 


hatches, and the darling busybody wren fussing about 
her house-building in the corners of our piazzas. The 
first red flowers of the Japanese quince opened flame-like 
on the bare brown bushes. When the bridal-wreath by 
the gate saw that, she set industriously to work upon her 
own wedding-gown. The yellow jessamine was full of 
waxy gold buds; and long since those bold frontiersmen 
of the year, the Judas-trees, had flaunted it in bravest 
scarlet, and the slim-legged scouts of the pines showed 
shoulder-straps and cockades of new gay green above 
gallant brown leggings. 

One brand new morning the Butterfly Man called me 
aside and placed in my hands a letter. The American 
Society of Natural History invited Air. John Flint, 
already a member of the Entomological Society of 
France, a Fellow of the Entomological Society of Lon¬ 
don, and a member of the greatest of Dutch and German 
Associations, to speak before it and its guests, at a most 
notable meeting to be held in the Society’s splendid 
Museum in New York City. Not to mention two mere 
ex-Presidents, some of the greatest scientific names of 
the Americas were included in that list. And it was 
before such as these that my Butterfly Man was to speak. 
Behold me rocking on my toes! 

The first effect of this invitation was to please me im¬ 
mense^, I being a puffed-up old man and carnal-minded 
at times; nor do I seem to improve with age. The 
plaudits of the world, for anybody I admire and love, 
ring most sweetly in my foolish ears. Now the honors 
he had gotten from abroad were fine and good in their 
way, but this meant that the value of his work was rec- 


IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT 293 


ognized and his position established in his own country, 
in his own time. It meant a widening of his horizon, 
association with clever men and women, ennobling friend¬ 
ships to broaden his life. A just measure of appreci¬ 
ation from the worthwhile sweetens toil and encourages 
genius. And yet—our eyes met, and mine had to ask 
an old question. 

“Would you better accept it?” I wondered. 

“I can’t afford not to,” said he resolutely. “The 
time’s come for me to get out in the open, and I might 
just as well face the music, and Do it Now. Risks? I 
hardly think so. I never hunted in couples, remember 
—I always went by my lonesome and got away with it. 
Besides, who’s remembering Slippy? Nobody. He’s 
drowned and dead and done with. But, however, and 
nevertheless, and because, I shall go.” 

Again we looked at each other; and his look was un¬ 
troubled. 

“The pipe-dreams I’ve had about slipping back into 
little old New York! But if anybody had told me I’d 
go back like I’m going, with the sort of folks waiting 
for me that will be waiting now, I’d have passed it up. 
Well, you never can tell, can you? And in a way it’s 
funny—now is n’t it ?” 

“No, you never can tell,” said I, soberly. “But I do 
not think it at all funny. Quite the contrary.” Sup¬ 
pose, oh, suppose, that after all these years, when a well- 
earned success was in his grasp, it should happen— 

I turned pale. He read my fear in my face and his 
smile might have been borrowed from my mother’s 
mouth. 


294 


SLIPPY McGEE 


4 ‘Don’t you get cold feet, parson,’’ he counseled 
kindly. “Be a sport! Besides, it’s all in the Game, 
you know.” 

“Is it?” 

“Sure!” 

“And worth while, John?” 

He laughed. “Believe me! It’s the worthwhilest 
thing under the sun to sit in the Game, with a sport ’s 
interest in the hands dealt out, taking yours as it comes 
to you, bluffing all you can when you’ve got to, playing 
your cards for all they ’re worth when it’s your turn. 
No reneging. No squealing when you lose. No boast¬ 
ing how you did it when you win. There’s nothing in 
the whole universe so intensely and immensely worth 
while as being you and alive, with yourself the whole 
kitty and the sky your limit! It’s one great old Game, 
and I’m for thanking the Big Dealer that I’da whack 
at playing it.” And his eyes snapped and his lean 
brown face flushed. 

“And you are really willing to—to stake yourself now, 
my son?” 

“Lord, parson, you ought to know! And you a dead 
ringer for the real thing in a classy sport yourself!” 

“My dear son—!” 

My dear son waved his fine hand, and chuckled in his 
red beard. 

“Would you back down if this was your call? Why, 
you ’re the sort that would tackle the biggest noise in 
the ring, even if you knew you’d be dragged out on your 
pantry in the first half of the first round, if you thought 
you’d got holy orders to do it! If you saw me getting 
jellyfish of the spine now, you’d curl up and die— 




IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT 295 


wouldn’t you, honest Injun?” His eyes crinkled and 
he grinned so infectiously that my fears subsided. I 
had an almost superstitious certainty that nothing really 
evil could happen to a man who could grin like that. 
Fate and fortune are perfectly powerless before the 
human being who can meet them with the sword of a 
smile. 

“Well,” I admitted cautiously, “jellyfish of the spine 
must be an unlovely ailment; not that I ever heard of 
it before.” 

“You ’re willing for me to go, then?” 

“You’d go anyhow, would you not?” 

“Forget it!” said he roughly. “If you think I’d do 
anything I knew would cause you uneasiness, you’ve 
got another think coming to you.” 

“Oh, go, for heaven’s sake!” said I, sharply. 

“All right. I ’ll go for heaven’s sake,” he agreed 
cheerfully. “And now it’s formally decided I’m to go, 
and talk, the question arises—what they really want me 
to talk about? I don’t know how to deal in glittering 
generalities. A chap on the trail of truth has got to let 
generalities go by the board. The minute he tackles the 
living Little People he chucks theories and bucks con¬ 
ditions. 

“Suppose I tell the truth as I see it: that most so- 
called authorities are like cats chasing their tails—be¬ 
cause they accept theories that have never been really 
proven, run after them, and so never get anywhere? 
And that facts dug up in the open under the sunlight 
don’t always fit in with notions hatched out in libraries 
under the electric light? 

‘ ‘ Suppose I say that after they’ve run everything 


296 


SLIPPY McGEE 


down to that plasma they ’re so fond of beginning and 
ending with, there is still something behind it all their 
theories can’t explain away? Protoplasm doesn’t, ex¬ 
plain Life any more than the battery explains electricity. 
Instinct? Evolution? The survival of the fittest? 
Well, nothing is tagged for fair, and I ’in more than 
willing to be shown. For the more I find out from 
the living things themselves,—you can’t get truth 
from death, you’ve got to get it from life—the more 
self-evident it seems to me that to exist at all insects 
must have arrived on the scene complete, handfinished, 
with the union label of the Great Workshop on them by 
way of a trade-mark. ’ ’ 

“As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, 
one God, world without end, Amen!” said I, smiling. 
I have never thought it necessary to explain or excuse 
the Creator. God is; things are. 

But he shook his head, wrinkling his forehead pain¬ 
fully. “I wish I knew,” said he, wistfully. “You ’re 
satisfied to believe, but I have got to know. Oh, great 
Power behind Things, I want to know! I want to 
know!” 

Ah, but I also do most passionately wish to know! 
If, however, the Insect has taught me anything in my 
lifelong study of it, it is to recognize the Unknowable, 
to know there is that which I cannot hope to know. But 
if under the law of its world, so different from ours and 
yet so alike because so inevitable, the Insect must move 
in a fixed circle within which it is safe, a circle whose 
very limitation preserves it from error and thus from 
destruction, may not a like fixed circle beyond which we 
may not penetrate preserve us, too ? Are these mountain 


IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT 297 

peaks of the Unknowable, the Impassable, which encom¬ 
pass the skyline of our humanity, these heights so mys¬ 
terious and so unscalable, not rather bulwarks between 
man’s pride and the abyss? 

Something of this I said to the Butterfly Man, and he 
nodded, but did not answer. He fell into a brown 
study; then plunged from the room without further look 
or word and made for his own desk. I was not afraid 
of what the Butterfly Man, fresh from little Appleboro’s 
woods and fields, would have to say to the scholars and 
scientists gathered to hear him! 

Apparently he was not either, for after he had gotten 
a few notes together he wisely turned the whole affair 
over to that mysterious Self that does our work and 
solves our problems for us. On the surface he busied 
himself with a paper setting forth the many reasons why 
the County of Appleboro should appropriate adequate 
funds for a common dipping vat, and hurried this to 
Dabney, who was holding open a space in the Clarion 
for it. Then there were new breeding cages to be made, 
for the supply of eggs and cocoons on hand would re¬ 
quire additional quarters, once they began to emerge. 

By the Saturday he had finished all this; and as I had 
that afternoon free we spent some beautiful hours with 
the microscope and slide mounts. I completed, too, the 
long delayed drawings of some diurnal wasp-moths and 
their larva3. We worked until my mother interrupted 
us with a summons to an early dinner, for Saturday 
evening belongs to the confessional and I was shortly 
due at the church. 

I left Flint with Madame and Miss Sally Ruth, who 
had run over after the neighborly Appleboro wont with 


298 


SLIPPY McGEE 


a plate of fresh sponge-cake and a bowl of fragrant 
custard. Miss Sally Ruth is nothing if not generous, 
but there are times when one could wish upon her the 
affliction of dumbness. As I slipped into my cassock in 
the study, I could hear her uplifted voice, a voice so 
insistent and so penetrating that it can pierce closed 
doors and come through a ceiling: 

“I declare to goodness, I don’t know what to believe 
any more! She’s got money enough in her own right, 
hasn’t she? For heaven’s sake, then, why should she 
marry for more money? But you never really know 
people, do you? Why, folks say—” 

I hurried out of the house and ran the short distance 
to the church. I wished I hadn’t heard; I wished Miss 
Sally Ruth, good as she is, would sometimes hold her 
tongue. She will set folks by the ears in heaven some of 
these days if she doesn’t mend her ways before she gets 
there. 

It must have been all of ten o’clock when I got back 
to the Parish House. Madame had retired; John Flint’s 
rooms were dark. The night itself was dark, though in 
between the clouds that a brisk wind pulleyhauled about 
the skies, one saw many stars. 

Too tired to sleep, I sat beside my window and 
breathed the repose that lay like a benediction upon the 
little city. I found myself praying; for Mary Virginia, 
whom I loved and over whom I was sorely troubled; for 
Laurence, even now walking such a road as I also once 
had to travel with feet as young but no more steadfast; 
and then with a thankfulness too deep for words, I 
thought a prayer for the Butterfly Man. So thinking 
and so praying, with a glow in my heart because of him, 


IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT 299 


I closed my window, and crept into bed and into sleep. 

I awoke with a start. Somebody was in the room. 
There was an urgent voice whispering my name, an 
urgent hand upon me. A pocket light flashed, and in 
its pale circle appeared the face of John Flint. 

“Get up!” said he in an intense whisper. “And 
come. Come! ’’ 

“Why, what in the name of heaven—” 

“Don’t make a row!” he snarled, and brought his 
face close. “Here—let me help you. Heaven, man, 
how slow you are!” With furious haste he forced my 
clothes upon me and even as I mechanically struggled to 
adjust them he was hustling me toward the door, through 
the dark hall, and down the stairs. 

“Easy there—careful of that step!” he breathed in 
my ear, guiding me. 

“But what is the matter?” I whispered back impa¬ 
tiently. I do not relish mystery and I detest being led 
willynilly. 

“In my rooms,” said he briefly, and hustled me across 
the garden on the double run, I with my teeth chattering, 
for I had been dragged out of my sleep, and the night 
air was cold. 

He fairly lifted me up his porch-steps, unlocked his 
door, and pushed me inside. With the drawn shades and 
the flickering firelight, the room was peaceful and pleas¬ 
ant enough. Then Kerry caught my astonished gaze, for 
the dog stood statue-like beside the Morris chair, and 
when I saw what Kerry’guarded I crossed myself. Sunk 
into the chair, the Butterfly Man’s old gray overcoat 
partly around her, was Mary Virginia. 

At my involuntary exclamation she raised her head 


300 


SLIPPY McGEE 


and regarded me. A great sigh welled from her bosom 
and I could see her eyes dilate and her lips quiver. 

‘ ‘ Padre, Padre! ’’ Down went her head, and she began 
to cry childishly, with sobs. 

I watched her helplessly, too bewildered to speak. But 
the other man’s face was the face of one crucified. I saw 
his eyes, and something I had been all too blind to rushed 
upon me overwhelmingly. This, then, was what had 
driven him forth for a time, this was what had left its 
indelible imprint upon him! He had hung upon his 
cross and I had not known. Oh, Butterfly Man, I had 
not known! 

“She ’ll be able to talk to you in a few minutes now, 
parson.” He was so perfectly unconscious of himself 
that he had no idea he bad just made mute confession. 
He added, doubtfully: “She said she had to come to 
you, about something—I don’t know what. It’s up to 
you to find out—she’s got to talk to you, parson.” 

“But—I wanted to talk to you, Padre. That’s why 
I—ran away from home in the middle of the night.” 
She sat suddenly erect. “I just couldn’t stand things, 
an}^ more—by myself—” 

Gone was the fine lady, the great beauty, the proud 
jilt who had broken Laurence’s heart and maddened and 
enslaved Inglesby. Here was only a piteous child with 
eyes heavy from weeping, with a pale and sad face and 
drooping childish lips. And yet she was so dear and so 
lovely, for all her reddened eyelids and her reddened 
little nose, that one could have wept with her. The 
Butterfly Man, with an intake of breath, stood up. 

“I shall leave you with the Padre now,” he said 
evenly, “to tell him what you wanted to tell him. 


IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT 301 

Father, understand: there’s something rotten wrong, 
as I ve been telling you all along. Now she ’s got to 
tell you what it is and all about it. Everything. 
Whether she likes to or not, and no matter what it is, 
she’s got to tell you. You understand that, Mary Vir¬ 
ginia ?” 

She fixed him with a glance that had in it something 
hostile and oblique. Even with those dearest of women 
whom I adore, there are moments when I have the im¬ 
pression that they have, so to speak, their ears laid back 
flat, and I experience what I may justly term cat-fear. 
I felt it then. 

“Oh, don’t have too much consideration for my feel¬ 
ings, Mr. Flint!” said she, with that oblique and baf¬ 
fling glance, and the smile Old Fitz once likened to the 
Curve in the Cat’s Tail. “Indeed, why should you go? 
Why don’t you stay and find out why I wanted to run 
to the Padre—to beg him to find some way to help me, 
since I can’t fall like a plum into Mr. Inglesby’s hand 
when Mr. Hunter shakes the Eustis family tree!” 

His breath came whistlingly between his teeth. 

“Parson! You hear?” he slapped his leg with his 
open palm. “Oh, I knew it, I knew it!” And he 
turned upon her a kindling glance: 

“I knew all along it was never in you to be anything 
but true!” said the Butterfly Man. 


CHAPTER XVI 


11 WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR*’ 

I T is impossible for me to put down in her own words 
what Mary Virginia told the Butterfly Man and 
me. Also, I have had to fill in gaps here and there, 
supplying what was lacking, from my intimate knowl¬ 
edge of the actors and from such chance words and hints 
and bits of detail as came to me afterward. But what 
I have added has been necessary, in order to do greater 
justice to everybody concerned. 

If it be true that the boy is father to the man, it is 
even more tritely true that the girl is mother to the 
woman, there being here less chance for change. So it 
was with Mary Virginia. That gracious little girlhood 
of hers, lived among the birds and bees and blossoms of 
an old Carolina garden, had sent her into the Church 
School with a settled and definite idealism as part of her 
nature. Her creed was simple enough: The world she 
knew was the best of all possible worlds, its men good, 
its women better; and to be happy and loved one had 
only to be good and loving. 

The school did not disabuse her of this pleasing op¬ 
timism. It was a very expensive school and could afford 
to have optimisms of its own. For one thing, it had no 
pupils poor enough to apply the acid test. 

When Mary Virginia was seventeen, Mrs. Eustis per¬ 
ceived with dismay that her child who had promised 
302 


“WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR” 303 


beauty was instead become angular, awkward, and self- 
conscious; and promptly packed the unworldly one off 
to spend a saving summer with a strenuously fashionable 
cousin, a widow, of whom she herself was very fond. 
She liked the idea of placing the gauche girl under so 
vigorous and seasoned a wing as Estelle Baker’s. As 
for Mrs. Baker herself, that gay and good-humored lady 
laughed at the leggy and serious youngster and promptly 
cook her education in hand along lines not laid down 
in Church Schools. 

Mrs. Baker was delighted with her own position—the 
reasonably young, handsome, and wealthy widow of a 
man she had been satisfied to marry and later to bury. 
She had an unimpaired digestion and no illusions, a kind 
heart, and the power of laughter. Naturally, she found 
life interesting. A club-woman, an ultra-modernist, 
vitally alive, she w T as fully abreast of her day. Her 
small library skimmed the cream of the insurgents and 
revolutionaries of genius; and here the shy and reticent 
schoolgirl with the mark of the churchly checkrein fresh 
upon her, was free to browse, for her cousin had no 
slightest notion of playing censor. Mrs. Baker thought 
that the sooner one was allowed to slough off the gauch- 
eries of the Young Person, the better. She did not gauge 
the real and tumultuous depths of feeling concealed 
under the young girl’s simplicity. 

The revolutionaries and the insurgent and free poets 
didn’t trouble Mary Virginia very much. Although 
she sensed that something was wrong with somebody 
somewhere—hence these lyrical lamentations—she could 
not, to save her, tell what all the pother was about, for 
as yet she saw the world couleur de rose. Some one or 


304 


SLIPPY McGEE 


two of the French and Germans pleased her; she fell into 
long reveries over the Gael, who has the sound of the 
sea in his voice and whose eyes are full of a haunting 
light, as of sunsets upon graves. But it was the Rus¬ 
sians who electrified and dazzled her. When she 
glimpsed with her eyes of a young girl those strange 
souls simple as children’s and yet mosaiced with un¬ 
imaginable and barbarous splendors, she stood blinking 
and half blinded, awed, fascinated, and avid to know 
more of that sky-scaling passion with which they burned. 

And in that crucial moment she chanced upon the 
“Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff, ” so frank and so astound¬ 
ing that it took her breath away and swept her off her 
feet. She was stirred into a vague and trembling ex¬ 
pectancy; she had the sense of waiting for something to 
happen. Life instantly became more colorful and more 
wonderful than she had dreamed could be possible, and 
she wished passionately to experience all these emotions, 
so powerful and so poignant. The Russian’s morbid and 
disease-bright genius acted upon her as with the force 
and intensity of a new and potent toxin. She could not 
lay the book aside, but carried it up to her room to be 
pored and pondered over. She failed to understand 
that, untried as she was, it was impossible for her to 
understand it. Had the book come later, it had been 
harmless enough; but it came at a most critical moment 
of that seething period when youth turns inward to 
question the universe, and demands that the answer shall 
be personal to itself. The first long ground-swell of 
awakening emotion swept over her, sitting in the pleasant 
chintz-hung room, with the Russian woman’s wild and 
tameless heart beating through the book open upon her 



“WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR” 305 

knees. And these waves of emotion that at recurrent 
intervals surge over the soul, come from the shores of a 
farther country than any earthly seas have touched, and 
recede to depths so profound that only the eyes of God 
may follow their ebb and flow. 

Mrs. Baker, however, saw nothing about which to give 
herself any concern. If she perceived the girl intense 
and preoccupied, she smiled indulgently—at Mary Vir¬ 
ginia’s age one is apt to be like that, and one recovers 
from that phase as one gets over mumps and measles. 
Mrs. Baker did think it advisable, though, to subtly 
detach the girl from books for awhile. She amused her¬ 
self by allowing her wide-eyed glimpses of the larger life 
of grown-ups, by way of arousing and initiation. Thus 
it happened that one afternoon at the country-club, 
where Mary Virginia, at the green-fruit stage, found her¬ 
self playing gooseberry instead of golf, Mrs. Baker 
sauntered up with a tall and very blonde man. 

“Here,” said she gaily, indicating with a wave of her 
hand her sulky-eyed young cousin, “is a marvel and a 
wonder—a girl who accepts on faith everything and ev¬ 
erybody! My dear Howard, in all probability she will 
presently even believe in you!” With that she left them, 
whisked off by a waiting golfer. 

The man and the girl appraised each other. The man 
saw young bread-and-butter with the raw sugar of beauty 
sprinkled upon it promisingly. What the girl saw was 
not so much a faultlessly groomed and handsome man 
as the most beautiful person in the world. And sud¬ 
denly she was aware that that for which she had been 
waiting had come. Something divine and wonderful was 
happening, and there was fire before her eyes and the 


306 


SLIPPY McGEE 


noise of unloosed winds and great waters in her ears, 
and her knees trembled and her heart fluttered. A vivid 
red flamed into her pale cheeks, a soft and trembling 
light suffused her blue eyes. That happens when the 
sweet and virginal freshness of youth is brought face to 
face with the bright shadow of love. 

He drew her out of her shyness and made her laugh, 
and after awhile, when there was dancing, he danced 
with her. He did not behave to her as other men of 
Estelle’s acquaintance had more than once behaved— 
as though they bestowed the lordly honor of their society 
upon her out of the sheer goodness of their hearts and 
their desire to please Mrs. Baker. Mary Virginia was 
uncompromising and stiff-necked enough then, and she 
bored most of her cousin’s friends unconsciously. Now 
this man, as much their superior as the sun is to farthing 
dips, was exerting himself to please her. That was the 
one thing Mary Virginia needed to arouse her. 

Mrs. Baker admired Mr. Hunter for a grace of manner 
almost Latin in its charm. If at times he puzzled her, 
he at least never bored her or anybody else, and for this 
she praised him in the gates. Her respect for him deep¬ 
ened when she perceived that he never allowed himself 
to be absorbed or monopolized. 

The pleasant widow did not take him too seriously. 
She only asked that he amuse and interest her. He did 
both, to a superlative degree. That is why and how he 
saw so much of the school-girl cousin whose naivete made 
him smile, it was so absurdly sincere. 

Mrs. Baker was glad enough to have Howard take her 
charge off her hands occasionally. She thought contact 
with this fine pagan an excellent thing for the girl who 


“WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR” 307 

took herself so seriously. She was really fond of Mary 
Virginia, but she must have found her hand-grenade 
directness a bit disconcerting at times. She wanted the 
child’s visit to be pleasant, and she considered it very 
amiable of Howard to help her make it so. She had no 
faintest notion of danger—to her Mary Virginia was 
nothing but a child, a little girl one indulged with pickles 
and pound-cake and the bliss of staying up later than 
the usual bedtime. As for Hunter, his was the French 
attitude toward the Young Person; she had heard him 
say he preferred his flowers in full bloom and his fruit 
ripe—one then knows what one is getting; one is n’t de¬ 
ceived by canker in the closed bud and worm in the green 
fruit. No, Howard wasn’t the sort that hankered for 
verjuice. 

None the less, although Mrs. Baker didn’t know it, 
Mary Virginia was engaged to the godlike Howard when 
she returned to school. It was to be a state secret until 
after she was graduated, and in the meantime he was 
to “make himself worthier of her love.” She hadn’t 
any notion he could be improved upon, but it pleased 
her to hear him say that. Humility in the superman is 
the ultimate proof of perfection. 

The maid who attended her room at school arranged 
for the receipt of his letters and mailed Mary Virginia’s. 
The maid was sentimental, and delighted to play a part 
smacking of those dime novels she spoiled her brains 
with. 

The little schoolgirl who was in love with love, and 
secretly betrothed to a man who had stepped alive out 
of old knightly romance, walked in the Land of April 
Rainbows and felt the whole joyous universe suffused 


308 


SLIPPY McGEE 


with a delicious and quivering glow of light and sound 
and scent. Surcharged with an emotion that she was 
irresistibly urged to express, and unable to do so by word 
of mouth, she was driven to the necessity of putting it 
down on paper for him. And she put it down in the 
burning words, the fiery phrases, of those anarchists of 
art who had intoxicated and obsessed her. 

Just a little later,—even a year later—and Mary Vir¬ 
ginia could never have written those letters. But now, 
very ignorant, very innocent, very impassioned, she ac¬ 
complished a miracle. She was like one speaking an un¬ 
known tongue, perfectly sure that the spirit moved her, 
but quite unable to comprehend what it was that it 
moved her to say. 

When Mrs. Baker insisted that her young cousin 
should come back to her for the Christmas holidays, the 
girl was more than eager to go. Seeing him again only 
deepened her infatuation. 

That holiday visit was an unusually gay one, for Mrs. 
Baker was really fond of Mary Virginia—the young 
girl’s tenderness and simplicity touched the woman of 
the world. She gave a farewell dance the night before 
Mary Virginia was to return to school. It was an in¬ 
formal affair, with enough college boys and girls to lend 
it a junior air, but there was a goodly sprinkling of 
grown-ups to deepen it, for the hostess said frankly that 
she simply couldn’t stand the Very Young except in 
broken doses and in bright spots. 

Hunter, of course, was to be one of the grownups. 
He had sent Mary Virginia the flowers she was to wear. 
And she had a new dancing frock, quite the loveliest and 
fluffiest and laciest she had ever worn. 


“WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR” 309 

He was somewhat late. And so engrossed with him 
were all her thoughts, so eager was she to see him, that 
she was a disappointing companion for anybody else. 
She couldn’t talk to anybody else. She flitted in and 
out of laughing groups like a blue-and-silver butterfly, 
and finally managed to slip away to the stair nook be¬ 
hind what Mrs. Baker liked to call the conservatory. 
This was merely a portion of the big back hall glassed in 
and hung with a yellow silk curtain; it had a tiny round 
crystal fountain in the center and one or two carved 
seats, but one wouldn’t think so small a space could 
hold so much bloom and fragrance. From the nook 
where Mary Virginia sat, one could hear every word 
spoken in the flower-room, though the hearer remained 
hidden by the paneled stairway. 

Hands in her lacy lap, eyes abstracted, she fell into 
the dreams that youth dreams; in which a girl—one’s 
self, say,—walks hand in hand through an enchanted 
world with a being very, very little lower than the angels 
and twice as dear. They are such innocent dreams, such 
impossible dreams, so untouched of all reality; but I 
wonder, oh I wonder, if life can ever give us anything 
to repay their loss! 

Somebody spoke in the conservatory and she looked 
up, startled. Through a parting in the silk curtain she 
glimpsed the woman and recognized one of Estelle’s 
friends, handsome and fashionable, but a woman she had 
never liked. 

“You provoke me. You try my patience too much!” 
she was saying, in a tone of suppressed anger. “People 
are beginning to say that you have a serious affair with 
that sugar-candy chit. I want to know if that is true?” 


310 


SLIPPY McGEE 


The man laughed, a lazy, pleasant, disarming laugh. 
She knew that laugh among a million, and her heart 
began to beat, but not with doubt or distrust. She won¬ 
dered how she had missed him, and if he had been look¬ 
ing for her; she thought of the exquisite secret that 
bound them together, and wondered how he was going 
to protect it without evasions or untruthfulness. And 
she thought the woman abominable. 

“You’re so suspicious, Evie!” he said smilingly. 
“Why bother about what can give you no real concern? 
Why discuss it here, at all? It’s not the thing, really.” 

The woman stamped her foot. She had an able-bodied 
temper. 

“I will know, and I will know now. I have to know 7 ,” 
said she, and her voice shook. Mary Virginia would have 
coughed then, would have made her presence known had 
she been able; but something held her silent. “Remem¬ 
ber, you ’re not dealing with a love-sick school-girl now, 
Howard: you are dealing with me. Have you made that 
little fool think you ’re in love with her?” 

“Why, and what then?” he asked coolly. “I like the 
child. Of course she is without form and void as yet, 
but there’s quite a lot to that girl.” 

“Oh, yes! Quite a lot!” said she, with sarcasm. 
“That’s what made me take notice. James Eustis’s 
girl—and barrels of money. She ’ll be a catch. You 
are clever, Howard! But what of me?” 

Mary Virginia’s heart fluttered. Indeed, what of this 
other woman? 

“Oh, well, there’s nothing definite yet, Evie,” said 
he soothingly. A hint of impatience was betrayed in 
his voice. Plainly, it irked him to be held up and ques- 


“WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR” 311 


tioned point-blank, at such a time and place. Just as 
plainly, he wished to conciliate his jealous questioner. 

My dear girl, it would be all of two or three years before 
the affair could be considered. Let well enough alone, 
Evie. Let’s talk about something else. ,, 

1 ‘No. We will talk about this. You are offering me 
a two or three years’ reprieve, are you not? Well, and 
then ? 9 y 

“Well, and then suppose I do marry the little thing,— 
if she has n’t changed her little mind?” said he, exasper¬ 
ated into punishing her. “It wouldn’t be a bad thing 
for me, remember, and she’s temptingly easy to deal 
with—that girl has more faith than the twelve apostles. 
Heavens, Evie, don’t look like that! My dearest girl, 
you don’t have to worry, anyhow. If your—er—im¬ 
pediment hasn’t stood in my way, why should mine in 
yours ? ’ ’ 

He spoke with a half-impatient, half-playful reproach. 
The woman uttered a little cry. To soothe and silence 
her, he kissed her. It was very risky, of course, but then 
the whole situation was risky, and he took his chance 
like the bold player he was. The girl crouching behind 
the paneled wall clenched her hands in her lap, felt her 
heart and brain on fire, and wondered why the sky did 
not fall upon the world and blot it out. 

When those two had left the conservatory and she 
could command her trembling limbs and whip her senses 
back into some semblance of order, she went upstairs 
and got his letters. When she came downstairs again 
he was standing in the hall, and he came forward eager, 
smiling, tender, as if his heart welcomed her; as perhaps 
it did, men having catholic hearts. She put her hand on 


SI 2 


SLIPPY McGEE 


his arm and whispered: “Come into the conservatory.” 

The hall was quite empty. From drawing-room and 
library and dining-room came the laughter and chatter 
of many people. Then the music struck up a gay and 
popular air. The lilt and swing of it made her giddy. 
But the little flower-room was cool and sweet, and she 
drew a breath of relief. 

Hunter bent his fair head, but she pushed him away 
with her hands against his chest. A horror of his beauty, 
his deliberate fascination, the falseness of him, came over 
her. For the first time she had been brought face to 
face with sin and falsehood, and hers was the unpardon¬ 
ing white condemnation of an angel to whom sin is un¬ 
known and falsehood impossible. That such knowledge 
should have come through him of all men made the thing 
more unbearable. Surprised and irritated by the pale 
tragedy of her aspect, Hunter stared, waiting for her to 
speak. 

“I was on the stairs. I heard you—and that woman,” 
said she with the directness that was sometimes so ap¬ 
palling. “And I know.” Her face turned burning red 
before it paled again. She was ashamed for him with 
the noble shame of the pure in heart. 

His face, too, went red and white with rage and aston¬ 
ishment. It was a damnable trap for a man to be caught 
in, and he was furious with the two women who had 
pushed him into it—he could have beaten them both with 
rods. Innocent as this girl was, he could not hope to 
deceive her as to the real truth. She had heard too 
much. But he thought he could manage her; women 
were as wax in Hunter’s hands. To begin with, they 
wanted to believe him. 


“WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR” 313 


“I hate to have to say it—but the lady is jealous,” 
he said frankly enough, with a disarming smile; and 
shrugged his shoulders, quite as if that simple statement 
explained and excused everything. 

“Oh, she need not be afraid—of me!” said the girl, 
with white-hot scorn. “I’d rather die by inches of 
leprosy than belong to you now. You are clever, though. 
And I was easy to deal with, wasn’t I? And I cared 
so much! I dare say it was really your hair and beard, 
but I honestly thought you a sort of Archangel! Well, 
you ’re not. You ’re not anything I thought you—not 
good nor kind nor honorable nor truthful—not anything 
but just a rather paltry sort of liar. You ’re not even 
loyal to her . I think I could respect you more if you 
were. But I am James Eustis’s girl—and that’s my 
salvation, Mr. Hunter. Please take your letters. You 
will send me back mine to-morrow.” 

He stroked his short gold beard. The color had come 
back into his face and a new light flashed into his cold 
blue eyes. He laughed. ‘ ‘ Why, you game little angel! ’ ’ 
he said delightedly. “Gad, I never thought you had it 
in you—never. I begin to adore you, Mary Virginia, 
upon my soul I do! Now listen to reason, my too-good 
child, and don’t be so puritanical. You’ve got to take 
folks as they are and not as you’d like them to be, you 
know. Men are not angels, no, nor women, either. You 
must learn to be charitable—a virtue very good people 
seldom practice and never properly appreciate.” And 
he added, leaning lower: “Mary Virginia! Give me 
another chance . . . you won’t be sorry, Ladybird.” 

But she stood unmoved, stonily silent, holding out the 
letters. And when he still ignored this silent insistence, 
she thrust them into his hands and left him. 


314 


SLIPPY McGEE 


Mary Virginia was to go back to school the next night. 
All day she waited for her letters. Instead came a note 
and a huge bunch of violets. The note said he couldn’t 
allow those precious letters which meant so much to him 
to pass even into her hands who had written them. 
When he could summon up the courage, he would pres¬ 
ently destroy them himself. And she had treated him 
with great harshness, and wouldn’t she be a good little 
girl and let him see her, if only for a few minutes, before 
she went away ? 

Mary Virginia tore up the note and returned the 
violets by way of answer. 

When she returned to school, the superioress re¬ 
gretted that she had been allowed to visit Mrs. Baker 
again, because too much gaiety was n’t good for her, and 
she was falling off in her studies. The other girls said 
she had lost all her looks, for in truth she was wan and 
peaked and hollow-eyed. Seventeen suffers frightfully, 
when it suffers at all. Eighteen enjoys its blighted af¬ 
fection, revels in its broken heart, would like to crochet 
a black edging on its immortal soul, and wouldn’t ex¬ 
change its secret sorrow for a public joy. Nineteen is 
convalescent—pride would come to its rescue even if life 
itself did not beguile it into being happy. 

Mary Virginia got back her color and her appetite and 
forgot to remember that her heart was incurably broken 
and that she could never love again. She liked to think 
her painful experience had made her very wise. Then 
she went abroad, and her cure was complete. The result 
of it all was that poise and pride which had so greatly 
delighted the autocratic old kinswoman whose fiat had 
set the last seal of social success upon her. 




“WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR” 315 


When one of life’s little jokes flung Hunter into Ap- 
pleboro and she had to observe him with impartial and 
less ingenuous eyes, she forgave the simple schoolgirl’s 
natural mistake. He had not changed, and she perceived 
his effect upon others older and wiser than herself. And 
her pride chose neither to slight nor to ignore him now, 
but rather to meet him casually, with indifference, as a 
stranger in whom she was not at all interested. 

Mr. Inglesby she did not take seriously. She did not 
dream that a possible menace to herself lay in this stout 
man whom she considered fatuous and absurd, when she 
thought of him at all. That her mother should be com¬ 
pletely taken in by his specious charity and his plausible 
presentment of himself, did not surprise her. She was 
inclined to smile scornfully and so dismiss him. 

She underestimated Inglesby. 

The very fact that there was such an obstacle in the 
way as a young fellow with whom she fancied herself 
in love only deepened Inglesby’s passion for Mary Vir¬ 
ginia. She was in her proper person all that he coveted 
and groveled to. To possess her in addition to his own 
wealth—what more could a man ask ? Let Eustis become 
senator, governor, president, anything he chose. But 
let Inglesby have Mary Virginia by way of fair exchange. 

Air. Inglesby was well aware that Miss Eustis would 
not for one moment consider him—unless she had to. 
He proposed to so arrange affairs that she had to. Natu¬ 
rally, he looked to his private secretary to help him bring 
about this desirable end. And at this opportune mo¬ 
ment fate played into his hands in a manner that left 
Mr. Hunter’s assent a matter of course. 

Mr. Hunter had very expensive tastes which his salary 


316 


SLIPPY McGEE 


was not always sufficient to cover. Wherefore, like many 
another, he speculated. When he was lucky, it was easy 
money; but it was never enough. Of late he had not been 
fortunate, and he found himself confronted by the high 
cost of living as he chose to live. This annoyed him. So 
when there came his way what appeared to be an abso¬ 
lute certainty of not only recouping all his losses but of 
making some real money as well, Hunter plunged, with 
every dollar he could manage to get hold of. But Wall 
Street is a lane that has many crooked and devious turn¬ 
ings, and Mr. Hunter’s investments took a very wrong 
turn. And this time it was not only all his own money 
that had been lost. The bottom might have dropped out 
of things then, except for Inglesby. 

When Hunter had to tell him the truth the financier 
listened with an unmoved face. Then he swung around 
in his chair, lifted an eyebrow, grunted, and remarked 
briefly: “Very unsafe thing to do, Hunter. Very.” 
And shoved his personal check across the desk. Nobody 
knew anything about it, except the head bookkeeper of 
the bank. 

Inglesby had no illusions, however. He understood 
that to have in his power an immensely clever man who 
knew as much about his private affairs as Hunter did, 
was good business, to say the least. He simply invested 
in Mr. Hunter’s brains and personality for his own im¬ 
mediate ends, and he expected his brilliant and expensive 
secretary to prove the worth of the investment. 

Inglesby had not risen to his present heights by beat¬ 
ing about the bush in his dealings with others. He had 
seized Success by the windpipe and throttled it into 
obedience, and he ruthlessly bent everything and every- 


“WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR” 317 


body to his own purposes. The task he set before Hunter 
now was to steer the Inglesby ship through a perilous 
passage into the matrimonial harbor he had in mind. 
Let Hunter do that—no matter how—and the pilot’s fu¬ 
ture was assured. Inglesby would be no niggardly re¬ 
warder. But let the venture come to shipwreck and 
Hunter must go down with it. Hunter was not left in 
any doubt upon that score. 

Brought face to face with the situation as it affected 
his fortune and misfortune, Hunter must have had a 
very bad half an hour. I am sure he had not dreamed 
of such a contretemps, and he must have been startled 
and amazed by the cold calculation and the raw fury of 
passion he had to deal with. I do not think he relished 
his task. His was the sort of conscience that would dis¬ 
like such a course, not because it was dishonorable or im¬ 
moral in itself, but because its details offended his fas¬ 
tidiousness. I think he w r ould have extricated himself 
honorably if he could. It just happened that he 
could n’t. 

Give a sufficient shock to a man’s pocket-nerve and 
you electrify his brain-cells, which automatically receive 
orders to work overtime. Hunter’s brain worked then 
because it had to, self-preservation being the first law of 
nature. And this service for Inglesby not only spelt 
safety; it meant the golden key to the heights, the power 
to gratify those fine tastes which only a rich and able 
man can afford. Inglesby had promised that, and he 
had just had a fair example of what Inglesby’s support 
meant. 

One must try to consider the case from Mr. Hunter’s 
point of view. To refuse Inglesby meant disaster. And 


318 


SLIPPY McGEE 


who was Laurence, who was Mary Virginia, that he 
should quixotically wreck his prospects for them ? Why 
should he lose Inglesby’s goodwill or gain Inglesby’s 
enmity for them or anybody else? Forced to choose, 
Hunter made the only choice possible to him. 

Vce victis! 


CHAPTER XVII 


“—SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY—” 

OW I am only an old priest and no business¬ 



man, so of course I do not know just how 
Hunter was set like a hound upon the track of 


those circumstances that, properly manipulated, helped 
him toward a solution of his problem—the getting of a 
girl apparently as unreachable as Mary Virginia Eustis. 

To start with, he had two assets, the first being Eustis 
pride. Shrewdly working upon that, Hunter played 
with skill and finesse. 

When he was ready, it was easy enough to meet Miss 
Eustis on the street of an afternoon. Although her 
greeting was disconcertingly cold, he fell into step beside 
her. And presently, in a low and intimate voice, he 
began to quote certain phrases that rang in her aston¬ 
ished ears with a sort of hatefu], familiarity. 

A glance at her face made him smile. “I wonder/’ 
he questioned, 4 ‘if you have changed, dear puritan? 
You are engaged to Mayne now, I hear. Very clever 
chap, Mayne. The moving power behind your father, I 
understand. And engaged to you! You ’re so intense 
and interesting when you ’re in love that one is tempted 
to envy Mayne. Ho you write him letters, too?” 

Mary Virginia’s level eyes regarded him with haughty 
surprise. The situation was rather unbelievable. 


319 




320 


SLIPPY McGEE 


“Miss Eustis—” he paused to bow and smile to some 
passing girls who plainly envied Mary Virginia, “Miss 
Eustis, you must come to my office, say to-morrow after¬ 
noon. We must have a heart-to-heart talk. I have some¬ 
thing you will find it to your interest to discuss with me. ’ ’ 

She disdained to reply, to ask him to leave her; her 
attitude did not even suggest that he should explain him¬ 
self. Seeming to be perfectly content with this attitude, 
he sauntered along beside her. 

“Do you know,” he smiled, “that with you the art of 
writing genuine love-letters amounts to a gift? I am 
sure your father—and let ’s say Mayne—would be as¬ 
tonished and delighted to read the ones I have. They 
are unequaled. Human documents, heart-interest, deli¬ 
cate and piquant sex-tang—the very sort of thing the 
dear public devours. I told you once they meant a great 
deal to me, remember ? They 're going to mean more. 
Come about four, please.” He lifted his hat, bowed, 
and was gone. 

Mary Virginia went to his office at four o’clock the 
next afternoon, as he had planned she should. She 
wanted to know exactly what he meant, and she fancied 
he meant to make her buy back the letters he claimed 
not to have destroyed. The bare idea of anybody on 
earth reading those insane vaporings sickened her. 

Hunter’s manner subtly allowed her to understand 
that he had known she would come, and this angered her 
inexpressibly; it gave him an advantage. 

“Instead of wasting time in idle persiflage,” he said 
when he had handed her a chair, “let’s get right down 
to brass tacks. You naturally desire to know why I kept 
your letters ? For one reason, because they are a bit of 


“—SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY-—” 321 


real literature. However, I propose to return them now 
—for a consideration.” 

He leaned forward, idly drumming on the polished 
desk, and regarded her with a sort of impersonal specu¬ 
lation. A little smile crept to his lip. 

“The whirligig of time does bring in its revenges, 
doesn’t it?” he mused aloud. Mary Virginia’s lips 
curled. 

“I do not follow you,” she said coldly. “I am not 
even sure you have the letters—that is why I am here. I 
must see them with my own eyes before I agree to 
pay for them. That is what you expect me to do, is it 
not?” 

“Oh, I have them all right—that is very easily 
proven,” said he, unruffled. “Now listen carefully, 
please, while I explain the real reason for your presence 
here this afternoon. Mr. Inglesby, for reasons of his 
own, desires to don the senatorial toga; why not ? Also, 
even more vehemently, Mr. Inglesby desires to lead to 
the altar Miss Mary Virginia Eustis: yourself, dear lady, 
your charming self: again, why not? Who can blame 
him for so natural and laudable an ambition? 

“As to his ever persuading you to become Mrs. In¬ 
glesby, without some—ah—moral suasion, why, you know 
what his chance would be better than I do. As to his 
persuading the state to send him to Washington, it would 
have been a certainty, a sure thing, if our zealous young 
friend Mayne hadn’t egged your father into the game. 
How Mayne managed that, heaven knows, particularly 
with your father’s affairs in the condition they are. 
Now, Eustis is a fine man. Far too fine to be lost in the 
shuffle at Washington, where he’d be a condemned nui- 


322 


SLIPPY McGEE 


sance—just as he sometimes is here at home. Do you 
begin to comprehend ?’ ’ 

“Why, no,” said she, blankly. “And I certainly fail 
to see where my silly letters—” 

“Let me make it plainer. You and your silly letters 
put the game into Mr. Inglesby’s hands, swing the bal¬ 
ance in his favor. You pay me? Heavens, no! We 
pay you —and a thumping price at that!” 

For a long moment they looked at each other. 

“My dear Miss Eustis,” he put the tips of his fine 
fingers together, bent forward over them, and favored 
her with a white-toothed smile, “behold in me Mr. In- 
glesby’s ambassador—the advocate of Cupid. Plainly, I 
am authorized to offer you Mr. Inglesby’s heart, his hand, 
and—his check-book. Let us suppose you agree to ac¬ 
cept—no, don’t interrupt me yet, please. And keep your 
seat, Miss Eustis. You may smile, but I would advise 
you to consider very seriously what I am about to say to 
you, and to realize once for all that Mr. Inglesby is in 
dead earnest and prepared to go to considerable lengths. 
Well, then, as I was about to say: suppose you agree to 
accept his proposal? Being above all things a business 
man, Mr. Inglesby realizes that gilt-edged collateral 
should be put up for what you have to offer—youth, 
beauty, charm, health, culture, family name, desirable 
and influential connections, social position of the highest. 
In exchange he offers the Inglesby millions, his absolute 
devotion to yourself, and his hearty support to all your 
father’s plans and interests. Observe the last, please; 
it is highly important. Besides this, Mayne and Eustis 
want reform, progress, Demos-with-a-full-dinner-pail, all 
the wearisome rest of that uplift stuff? Inglesby will 


SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY—” 323 


see that they get an undiluted dose of it. More yet: 
if you have any scruples about Mayne, Inglesby will 
get behind that young man and boost him until he can 
crow on the weathervane—when you are Mrs. Inglesby. 
A chap like Mayne would be valuable, properly expur¬ 
gated. Come, Miss Eustis, that’s fair enough. If you 
refuse—well, it’s up to you to make Eustis understand 
that he must eliminate himself from politics—and look 
out for himself,” he finished ominously. 

Mary Virginia rose impetuously. 

“I am no longer seventeen, Mr. Hunter. What, do 
you honestly think you can frighten a grown woman 
into believing that a handful of silly letters could possi¬ 
bly be worth all that? Well, you can’t. And—let me 
remind you that blackmailing women isn’t smiled upon 
in Carolina. A hint of this and you’d be ostracized. ’ ’ 
“So would you. And why use such an extreme term 
as blackmailing for what really is a very fair offer?” said 
he, equably. * ‘ The letters are not the only arrows in my 
quiver, Miss Eustis. But as you are more interested in 
them than anything else just now, suppose we run over 
a few, just to remind you of their amazing nature?” 
He rose leisurely, opened the safe in a corner of the 
^room, took from the steel money-vault a package, and 
Mary Virginia recognized her own writing. Always 
keeping them under his own hand, he yet allowed her to 
lean forward and verify what he chose to read. 

Her face burned and tears of mortification stung her 
eyes. Good heavens, had she been as silly and as senti¬ 
mental as all that? But as she listened to his smooth 
remorseless voice, mortification merged into amazement 
and amazement into consternation. Older and wiser 


SLIPPY McGEE 


324 

now, she saw what ignorance and infatuation had really 
accomplished, and she realized that a fool can unwit¬ 
tingly pull the universe about her ears. 

She was appalled. It was as if her waking self were 
confronted by an incredible something her dreaming self 
had done. She knew enough of the world now to realize 
how such letters would be received—with smiles intended 
to wound, with the raised eyebro^v, the shrugged shoul¬ 
der. She wondered, with a chill of panic, how she could 
ever hope to make anybody understand what she ad¬ 
mitted she herself could n’t explain. For heaven’s sake, 
what had she been trying to tell this man ? She did n’t 
know any more, except that it hadn’t been what these 
letters seemed to reveal. 

“Well?” said the lazy, pleasant vbice, “don’t you 
agree with me that it would have been barbarous to de¬ 
stroy them? Wonderful, aren’t they? Who would 
credit a demure American schoolgirl with their supreme 
art? A French court lady might have written them, in 
a day when folks made a fine art of love and were n’t 
afraid nor ashamed. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ I must have been stark mad! ’ ’ said she, twisting her 
fingers. * ‘ How could I ever have done it ? Oh, how ? ’ ’ 

“Oh, we all have our moments of genius!” said he, 
airily. 

As he faced her, smiling and urbane, she noted woman- 
fashion the superfine quality of his linen, the perfection 
of every detail of his appearance, the grace with which 
he wore his clothes. His manner was gracious, even 
courtly. Yet there was about him something so relentless 
that for the first time she felt a quiver of fear. 

“If my father—or Mr. Mayne—knew this, you would 


“—SAID THE SPIDER TO THE ELY-—’ 325 


undoubtedly be shot!” said she, and her eyes flashed. 

“Unwritten law, chivalry, all the rest of that rot? I 
am well aware that the Southern trigger-finger is none 
too steady, where lovely woman is concerned,” he ad¬ 
mitted, with a faint sneer. “But when one plays for 
high stakes, Miss Eustis, one runs the risks. Granted I 
do get shot? That wouldn’t give you the letters: it 
would simply hand them over to prosecuting attorneys 
and the public press, and they’d be damning with blood 
upon them. No, I don’t think there ’ll be any fireworks 
•—just a sensible deal, in which everybody benefits and 
nobody loses. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ The thing is impossible, perfectly impossible. ’ ’ 

“I don’t see why. Everything has its price and I’m 
offering you a pretty stiff one.” 

“I would rather be burned alive. Marry Mr. In- 
glesby? I? Why, he is impossible, perfectly impossi¬ 
ble!” 

“He is nothing of the kind. And he is very much in 
love with you—you amount to a grand passion with 
Inglesby. Also, he has twenty millions.” He added 
dryly: “You are hard to please.” 

Mary Virginia waved aside grand passion and twenty 
millions with a gesture of ineffable disdain. 

“Even if I were weak and silly enough to take you 
seriously, do you imagine my father would ever consent ? 
He would despise me. He would rather see me dead.” 

“Oh, no, he wouldn’t. Nobody can afford to despise 
a woman with twenty millions. It isn’t in human na¬ 
ture. Particularly when you save Mr. James Eustis 
himself from coming a breakneck cropper, to say the very 
least.” 


326 SLIPPY McGEE 

For the moment she missed the significance of that 
last remark. 

“I repeat that I would rather be burned alive. I 
despise the man!” said she, passionately. 

“Oh, no, you would n’t.” His manner was a bit con¬ 
temptuous. “And you’d soon get used to him. Women 
and cats are like that. They may squall and scratch a 
bit at first, but the saucer of cream reconciles them, and 
presently they are quite at home and purring, the sensi¬ 
ble creatures! You ’ll end by liking him very well.” 

The girl ignored this Job’s comforting. 

“What shall I say to my father?” she asked directly. 
“Tell him you kept the foolish letters written you by an 
ignorant child—and the price is either his or my selling 
out to Mr. Inglesby?” 

“That is your lookout. You can’t expect us to let 
your side whip us, hands down, can you? Mr. Inglesby 
does not propose to submit tamely to everything.” His 
face hardened, a glacial glint snapped into his eyes. 
“Inglesby’s no worse than anybody else would be that 
had to hold down his job. He’s got virtues, plenty of 
solid good-citizen, church-member, father-of-a-family 
virtues, little as you seem to realize it. Also, let me re¬ 
peat—he has twenty millions. To buy up a handful of 
letters for twenty million dollars looks to me about the 
biggest price ever paid since the world began. Don’t be 
a fool!” 

“I refuse. I refuse absolutely and unconditionally. 
I shall immediately send for my father—and for Mr. 
Mayne—” 

“I give you credit for better sense,” said he, with a 
razor-edged smile. “Eustis is honorable and Mayne is 


“—SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY—” 327 


in love with you, and when you spring this they ’ll swear 
they believe you: but will theyt Do men ever believe 
women, without the leaven of a little doubt? Speaking 
as a man for men, I would n’t put them to the test. No, 
dear lady, I hardly think you are going to be so silly. 
Now let us pass on to something of greater moment than 
the letters. Did you think I had nothing else to urge 
upon you ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ What, more ? ’ ’ said she, derisively. ‘ ‘ I don’t think I 
understand.” 

“I am sure you don’t. Permit me, then, to enlighten 
you.” He paused a moment, as if to reflect. Then, im¬ 
pressively : 

4 ‘Hitherto, Miss Eustis, you have had the very button 
on Fortune’s cap,” he told her. “Suppose, however, 
that fickle goddess chose to whisk herself off bodily, and 
left you— you, mind you! to face the ugly realities of 
poverty, and poverty under a cloud?” And while she 
stared at him blankly, he asked: “What do you know 
of your father’s affairs?” 

As a matter of fact she knew very little. But some¬ 
thing in the deadly pleasantness of his voice, something 
in his eyes, startled her. 

“What do you mean, Mr. Hunter?” 

“Ah, now w T e get down to bedrock: your father’s af¬ 
fairs,” he said evenly. “Your father, Miss Eustis, is a 
very remarkable man, a man with one idea. In other 
words, a fanatic. Only a fanatic could accomplish what 
Eustis has accomplished. His one idea is the very sound 
old idea that people should remain on the land. He 
starts in to show his people how to do it successfully. 
Once started, the work grows like Jonah’s gourd. He 


328 


SLIPPY McGEE 


becomes a sort of rural white hope. So far, so good. 
But reclamation work, experimenting, blooded stock, up- 
to-the-minute machinery, labor-saving devices, chemicals, 
high-priced experts, labor itself, all that calls for money, 
plenty of money. Your father’s work grew to its monu¬ 
mental proportions because he’d gotten other men inter¬ 
ested in it—all sorts and conditions of men, but chiefly— 
and here’s at once his strength and weakness—farmers, 
planters, small-town merchants and bankers. They 
backed him with everything they had—and they have n’t 
lost—yet. 

“ However, there are such things as bad seasons, labor 
troubles, boll-weevil, canker, floods, war. He lost ship¬ 
loads of cotton. He lost heavily on rice. Remember 
those last floods? In some of his places they wiped the 
work of years clean off the map. He had to begin all 
over, and he had to do it on borrowed money; which in 
lean and losing years is expensive. Floods may come 
and crops may go, but interest on borrowed money goes 
on forever. lie mortgaged all he could mortgage, risked 
everything he could risk, took every chance—and now 
everything is at stake with him. 

‘‘Do you realize what it would mean if Eustis went 
under ? A smash to shake the state! Consider, too, the 
effect of failure upon the man himself! He can’t fail, 
though —if Mr. Inglesby chooses to lend a hand. Now 
do you begin to comprehend?” 

In spite of her distrust, he impressed her profoundly. 
He did not over-estimate her father’s passionate belief 
in himself and the value of his work. If anything, 
Hunter had slurred the immense influence Eustis exerted, 
and the calamitous effect his failure would have upon 


“—SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY—” 329 


the plain people who looked up to him with such un¬ 
limited trust. They would not only lose their money; 
they would lose something no money could pay fQr— 
their faith. 

“Oh, but that just simply couldn’t happen!” said 
Mary Virginia, and her chin went up. 

“It could very easily happen. It may happen 
shortly, ’ ’ he contradicted politely. ‘ ‘ Heavens, girl, don’t 
you know that the Eustis house is mortgaged to the roof, 
that Rosemount Plantation is mortgaged from the front 
fences to the back ditches? No, I suppose he wouldn’t 
want his women-folks to know. He thinks he can tide 
it over. They always believe they can tide it over, those 
one-idea chaps. And he could, too, for he’s a born win¬ 
ner, is Eustis. Give him time and a good season and 
he’d be up again, stronger than ever. ’ ’ While he spoke 
he was taking from a drawer a handful of papers, which 
he spread out on the desk. She could see upon all of 
them a bold clear “James Eustis.” 

“One place mortgaged to prop up another, and that 
in turn mortgaged to save a third. Like links in a chain. 
Any chain is only as strong as its weakest link, remem¬ 
ber. And we’ve got the links. Look at these, please.” 
He laid before her two or three slips of paper. Mary 
Virginia’s eyes asked for enlightenment. 

“These,” explained Hunter, “are promissory notes. 
You will see that some of them are about due—and the 
amounts are considerable.” 

“Oh! And he had to do that?” 

“Of course. What else could he do? We kept a very 
close watch since we got the first inkling that things 
were not breaking right for him* Mr. Inglesby’s own 


330 


SLIPPY McGEE 


interests are pretty extensive—and we set them to work. 
It wasn’t hard to manage, after things began to shape: 
a word here, a hint there, an order somewhere else; and 
once or twice, of course, a bit of pressure was brought 
to bear, in obdurate instances. But the man with money 
is always the man with the whip hand. Eustis got the 
help he had to have—and presently we got these. All 
perfectly legitimate, all in the course of the day’s work. 

“Now, promissory notes are dangerous instruments 
should a holder desire to use them dangerously. Mr. 
Inglesby could give Eustis an extension of time, or he 
could demand full payment and immediately foreclose. 
You see, it’s entirely optional with Air. Inglesby.” And 
he leaned back in his chair, perfectly self-possessed, en¬ 
tirely at his ease, and waited for her to speak. 

“You could do that—anybody could do that—to my 
father ? ’ ’ she was only half-convinced. 

“I assure you we can send him under—with a lot of 
other men’s money tied around his neck to keep him 
down.” 

“But even you would hesitate to do a thing like that !” 

“All is fair,” said Hunter, “in love and war.” 

“Fair?” 

“Legitimate, then.” 

“But if he is in Mr. Inglesby’s way and in his power 
at the same time, why not remove him in the ordinary 
course of business? Why drag in me and my letters?” 

“Why? Because it’s the letters that enable us to 
reach you. My dear girl, Mr. Inglesby doesn’t really 
give a hang whether Eustis sinks or swims. He’d as 
lief back him as not, for in the long run it’s good busi¬ 
ness to back a winner. But it’s you he’s playing for, 


“—SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY—” 331 


and on that count all is fish that comes to his net. Now 
do you begin to see ? ” 

Mary Virginia began to see. She looked at the un¬ 
ruffled man before her a bit wonderingly. 

“And what do you get out of this?” she asked, unex¬ 
pectedly. “Mr. Inglesby is to get me, I am to get his 
money and a package of letters, my father is to get time 
to save himself; well then, what do you get ? The pleas¬ 
ure of doing something wrong? Revenge?” 

But Hunter looked at her with cold astonishment. 
“You surprise me,” he said. “You talk as if you ’d 
been going to see too many of those insufferable screen¬ 
plays that make the proletariat sniffle and the intelligent 
swear. I am merely a business man, Miss EuStis, and 
attending to this particular affair for my employer is all 
in the course of the day’s work. I—er—am not in a 
position to refuse to obey orders or to be captious, par¬ 
ticularly since Mr. Inglesby has agreed to double my 
present salary. That in itself is no light inducement— 
but I get more. I get Mr. Inglesby’s personal backing, 
which means an assured future to me; as it will mean to 
you and your father, if you have got the sense you were 
born with. This is business. Kindly omit melodrama 
—crude, and not at all your style, really,” he finished, 
critically. 

“This is nothing short of villainy. And not at all 
too crude for your style,” said Mary Virginia. 

He laughed good-humoredly. “Bad temper is vastly 
becoming to you,” he told her. “It gives you a mag¬ 
nificent color.” 

And at that Mary Virginia looked at him with eyes in 
which the shadow of fear was deepening. Hard as nails, 


332 


SLIPPY McGEE 


cold as ice, to him she was merely a means to an end. 
He did not even hate her. The guillotine does not hate 
those whom it decapitates, either; none the less it takes 
oft* their heads once they get in the way of the descending 
knife. 

“I suggest,” said Hunter, rising, “that you go home 
now and think the matter over carefully. Weigh what 
you and your father stand to gain against what you 
stand to lose. I do not press you for an immediate de¬ 
cision. You shall have a reasonable time for consider¬ 
ation.” It was a threat and a command, thinly veiled. 

All that night, unable to sleep, she did think the matter 
over carefully; she turned and twisted it about and 
about and saw it now from this angle and now from 
that; and the more she studied it in all its bearings the 
worse it grew. There was no escape from it. 

Suppose, although she knew she could never, never 
hope to satisfactorily explain them, she nevertheless told 
her father about those letters and the part they were to 
be made play, now that his own affairs had reached a 
crisis ? She could fancy herself telling him that he must 
shield himself behind her skirts if he would save himself 
from ruin. That ... to James Eustis! 

Suppose that the Carolina trigger-finger slipped, as 
Hunter had nonchalantly admitted might happen: what 
then? But it is the woman in the case who always suf¬ 
fers the most and the longest; it is the woman, always, 
who pays the greater price. Her fears magnified the 
imagined evil, her pride was crucified. 

What tortured her most was that they were actually 
making her party to a wreck that could easily be averted. 
Hunter had admitted that Eustis could weather the storm, 


“—SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY—” 333 


if he were given time. Oh, to gain time for him, then! 
And she lay there, staring into the dark with wet eyes. 
How could she help him, she who was also snared ? 

And in desperation she hit upon a forlorn hope. She 
dared not speak out openly to anybody, she dared not 
flatly refuse Inglesby’s pretensions, for that would be to 
invite the avalanche. What she proposed to herself was 
to hold him off as long as she could. She would not be 
definite until the last possible minute. Always there 
was the chance that by some miracle of mercy Eustis 
might be able to meet those notes when they fell due. 
Let him do that, and she would then tell him everything. 
But not now. He was bearing too much, without that 
added burden. 

It cost her a supreme effort to face the situation as it 
affected herself and Laurence. Life without Laurence! 
The bare thought of it tested her heart and showed her 
how inalienably it belonged to him. But under all his 
lovingness and his boyishness, Laurence had a sternness, 
a ruggedness as adamantine as one of Cromwell’s Iron¬ 
sides. With him to know would be to act. Well—he 
mustn’t know. It terrified her to think of just what 
might happen, if Laurence knew. 

Under the circumstances there seemed but one course 
open to her—to give up Laurence, and that without ex¬ 
planations. For his own sake she had to keep silent— 
just as Hunter had known she would. What Laurence 
must think of her, even the loss of his affection and re¬ 
spect, would be part of the price paid for having been a 
fool. 

In the most unobtrusive manner they kept in touch 
with her. Hunter had so adroitly wirepulled, and so 


334 


SLIPPY McGEE 


deftly softened and toned down Inglesby’s crudities, that 
Mrs. Eustis had become the latter’s open champion. 
Condescending and patronizing, she liked the importance 
of lending a very rich man her social countenance. She 
insisted that he was misunderstood. Men of great for¬ 
tunes are always misunderstood. Nobody considers it a 
virtue to be charitable to the rich—they save all their 
charity for the poor, who as often as not are undeserv¬ 
ing, and are generally insanitary as well. Mrs. Eustis 
thanked her heavenly Father she was a woman of larger 
vision, and never thought ill of a man just because he 
happened to be a millionaire. Millionaires have got souls, 
she hoped? And hearts? Mrs. Eustis said she knew 
Mr. Inglesby’s noble heart, my dear, whether others did 
or not. 

Compelled to apparently jilt Laurence, Mary Virginia 
sank deeper and deeper into the slough of despond. A 
terror of Inglesby’s power, as of something supernatural, 
was growing upon her, a terror almost childish in its 
intensity. He had begun to occupy the niche vacated by 
the Boogerman her Dah had threatened her with in her 
nursery. She could barely conceal this terror, save that 
an instinct warned her that to let him know she feared 
him would be fatal. And she felt for him a physical 
repulsion strong enough to be nauseating. 

The fact that she disdained and perhaps even disliked 
him and made no effort to conceal her feelings, did not 
in the least ruffle his bland complacency nor affront his 
pride. He knew that not even an Inglesby could hope 
to find a Mary Virginia more than once in a lifetime, 
and the haughtier she was the more she pleased him; 


‘—SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY—” 335 


it added to his innate sense of power, and this in itself 
endeared her to him inexpressibly. 

But as the girl still held out stubbornly, trying to 
evade the final word that would force a climax disastrous 
any way she viewed it, Inglesby’s patience was exhausted. 
He was determined to make her come to terms by the 
word of her own mouth, and he had no doubt that 
her final word must be Yes; perhaps a Yes reluctant 
enough, but nevertheless one to which he meant to hold 
her. 

To make that final demand more impressive, Hunter 
was not entrusted with the interview. Hunter may have 
been doubtful as to the wisdom of this, but Inglesby 
could no longer forego the delight of dealing with Mary 
Virginia personally. On the Saturday night, then, Airs. 
Eustis being absent, Mr. Inglesby, manicured, massaged, 
immaculate, shaven and shorn, called in person; and not 
daring to refuse, Mary Virginia received him, wondering 
if for her the end of the world had not come. 

He made a mistake, for Mary Virginia had her back 
against the wall, literally waiting for the Eustis roof to 
fall. But he could not forego the pleasure of witnessing 
her pride lower its crest to him. He did not relish a 
go-between, even such a successful one as his secretary. 
He had made up his mind that she should have until 
to-morrow night, Sunday, to come to a decision—just 
that long, and not another hour. He was not getting 
younger; he wanted to marry, to found a great estab¬ 
lishment as whose mistress Mary Virginia should shine. 
And she was making him lose time. 

What Inglesby succeeded in doing was to bring her 


336 


SLIPPY McGEE 


terror to a head, and to fill her with a sick loathing of 
him. Under the smooth protestations, the promises, the 
threats veiled with hateful and oily smiles, the man him¬ 
self was revealed: crude, brutal, dominant, ruthless, a 
male animal bull-necked and arrogant, with small eyes, 
wide nostrils, cruel moist lips, sensual fat -white hands 
she hated. And he was so sure of her! Mary Virginia 
found herself smarting under that horrible sureness. 

Perfectly at his ease, inclined to be familiar and 
jocose, he looked insolently about the lovely old room 
that had never before held such a suitor for a daughter 
of that house. Watching her with the complacent eyes 
of an accepted lover, assuming odious airs of proprietor¬ 
ship such as made one wish to throttle him, he was in no 
hurry to go. It seemed to her that black and withering 
years rolled over her head before he could bring himself 
to rise to take his departure. Death could hardly be 
colder to a mortal than she had been to this man all the 
evening, and yet it had not disconcerted him in the least! 

He stood for a moment regarding her with the eyes of 
possession. “And to think that to-morrow night I shall 
have the right to openly claim you as my promised 
wife!” he exulted. “You can’t realize what it means 
to a man to be able to say to the world that the most 
beautiful woman in it is his!” 

Directly in front of her hung the portrait of the 
founder of the house in Carolina, the cavalier who had 
fled to the new world when Charles Stuart’s head fell 
in the old one. It was a fine and proud face, the eyes 
frank and brave, the mouth firm and sweet. The girl 
looked from it to George Inglesby’s, and found herself 
unable to speak. But as she stood before him, tall and 


SAID THE SPIDER TO THE ELY—” 337 


U 


proud and pale, the loveliness, the appealing charm of 
her, went like a strong wine to the man’s head. With 
a quick and fierce movement he seized her hand and 
covered it with hot and hateful kisses. 

At the touch of his lips cold horror seized her. She 
dragged her hand free and waved him back with a splen¬ 
did indignation. But Inglesby was out of hand; he had 
taken the bit between his teeth, and now he bolted. 

“Do you think I’m made of stone?” he bellowed, and 
the mask slipped altogether. There was no hypocrisy 
about Inglesby now; this was genuine. “Well, I’m 
not! I’m a man, a flesh-and-blood man, and I’m crazy 
for you—and you ’re mine! You ’re mine, and you 
might just as well face the music and get acquainted 
with me, first as last. Understand ? 

“I’m not such a bad sort—what’s the matter with 
me, anyhow? Why ain’t I good enough for you or any 
other woman ? Suppose I’m not a young whippersnap- 
per with his head full of nonsense and his pockets full 
of nothing, can the best popinjay of them all do for you 
what 1 can? Can any of ’em offer you what 1 can 
offer ? Let him try to: I ’ll raise his bid! 

“Here—don’t you stand here staring at me as if I’d 
tried to slit your throat just because I’ve kissed your 
hand. Suppose I did? Why shouldn’t I kiss your 
hand if I want to? It’s my hand, when all’s said and 
done, and I ’ll kiss it again if I feel like it. No, no, 
beauty, I won’t, not if it’s going to make you look at 
me like that! Why, queen, I wouldn’t frighten you 
for worlds! I love you too much to want to do any¬ 
thing but please you. I’d do anything, everything, just 
to please you, to make you like me! You ’ll believe that, 


338 


SLIPPY McGEE 


won’t you?” And he held out his hands with a sup¬ 
plicating and impassioned gesture. 

“Why can’t we he friends? Try to be friends with 
me, Mary Virginia! You would, if you only knew how 
much I love you. Why, I’ve loved you ever since that 
first day I saw you, after you’d come back home. I was 
going into the bank, and I turned, and there you were! 
You had on a gray dress, and you wore violets, a big 
bunch of them. I can smell them yet. God! It was 
all up with me! I was crazy about you from the start, 
and it’s been getting worse and worse . . . worse and 
worse! 

“You don’t know all I mean to do for you, beauty! 
I’m going to give you this little old world to play with. 
Nothing’s too good for you. Look at me! I’m not an 
old man yet—I’ve only just begun to make money for 
you. Now be a little kind to me. You’ve got to marry 
me, you know. Look here: you kiss me good-night, 
just once, of your own free will, and I swear you shall 
have anything under the sky you ask me for. Do you 
want a string of pearls that will make yours look like 
a child’s playpretty? I ’ll hang a million dollars 
around that white throat of yjurs!” 

But there came into the girl’s eyes that which gave 
him pause. They stood staring at each other; and 
slowly the wine-dark flush faded from his face and left 
him livid. Little dents came about his nose, and his 
lips puckered as if the devil had pinched them together. 

“No?” said he thickly, and his jaw hardened, and his 
eyes narrowed under his square forehead. “No? You 
won’t, eh ? Too fine and proud ? My lady, you ’ll learn 
to kiss me when I tell you to, and glad enough of the 


“—SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY—” 339 


chance, before you and I finish with each other! Why, 
you—I—Oh, good God! Why do you rouse the devil 
in me, when I only want to be friends with you ? ’ ’ 

But she, with a ghastly face, turned swiftly and with 
her head held high walked out of the room, passed 
through the wide hall, and ascended the stairs, without 
even bidding him goodnight. Let him take his dis¬ 
missal as he would—she could stand no more! 

Once in her own room, Mary Virginia dismissed Nancy 
for the night. She had to be alone, and the colored 
woman was an irrepressible magpie. Furiously she 
scrubbed her hands, as if to remove the taint of his 
touch. That he had dared! Her teeth chattered. She 
could barely save herself from screaming aloud. She 
bathed her face, dashed some toilet water over herself, 
and fell into a chair, limp and unnerved. 

One day! 

She was facing the end and she knew it. Because she 
had to say No. She had never for one minute admitted 
to herself the possibility of her own surrender. She 
could give up Laurence, since she had to; but she could 
not accept Inglesby. Anything rather than that! At 
the most, all she had hoped was to evade that final No 
until the last moment, in order to give Eustis what poor 
respite she could. Only her great love for him had en¬ 
abled her to do that much. And it had not helped. 
When she thought of the wreck that must come, she beat 
her hands together, softly, in sheer misery. It was like 
standing by and watching some splendid ship being 
pounded to pieces on the rocks. 

Only her innate bravery and her real and deep re¬ 
ligious instinct saved her from altogether sinking into 


340 


SLIPPY McGEE 


inertia and despair. She had to arouse herself. Other 
women had faced situations equally as impossible and 
unbearable as hers, and the best of them had not allowed 
themselves to be whipped into tame and abject submis¬ 
sion. Even at the worst they had snatched the great 
chance to live their own lives in their own way. As for 
her, surely there must be some way out of this snarl, 
some immediate way that led to honorable freedom, even 
without hope. But how and where was she to find any 
way open to her, between now and to-morrow night? 

On her dressing table, with a handful of trinkets upon 
it, lay the tray that the Butterfly Man had sent her 
when she was graduated. Chin in hands, Mary Vir¬ 
ginia stared absently enough at the brightly colored 
butterflies she had been told to remember were mes¬ 
sengers bearing on their wings the love of the Parish 
House people. Why—why—of course! The Parish 
House people! They had blamed her, because they 
hadn’t understood. But if she were to ask the Parish 
House people for any help within their power, she could 
be sure of receiving it without stint. 

If she could get to the Parish House without anybody 
knowing where she was, Inglesby and Hunter would be 
balked of that interview to-morrow night. The worst 
was going to happen anyhow, but if she could n’t save 
herself from anything else, at least she could save her¬ 
self from facing them alone. To be able to do that, she 
would go now, in the middle of the night, and tell the 
Padre everything. Unnerved as she was, she couldn’t 
face the hours between now and to-morrow morning here, 
by herself. She had to get to the Parish House. 

It was then after eleven, Nancy having been dis* 


“—SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY—” 341 


missed for the night, she had no fear of being inter¬ 
rupted. She made her few preparations, switched off 
the light, and sat down to wait until she could be sure 
that all the servants were abed, and the streets deserted. 
She felt as if she were a forlorn castaway upon a pin¬ 
point of land, with immeasurable dark depths upon 
either side. 

The midnight express screeched and was gone. She 
switched on the light for a last look about her pretty, 
pleasant room. There was a snapshot of the Parish 
House people upon her mantel, and she nodded to it, 
gravely, before she once more plunged the room into 
darkness. 

Noiselessly she slipped downstairs and let herself out. 
The midnight air was bitingly cold, but she did not feel 
it. With one handsatchel holding all she thought she 
could honestly lay claim to, Mary Virginia turned her 
back upon the home that had sheltered her all her life, 
but that would n’t be able to shelter its own people much 
longer, because Inglesby was going to take it away from 
them. It made her wince to think of him as master 
under that roof. The old house deserved a happier fate. 

At best the Parish House could be only a momentary 
stopping-place. What lay beyond she did n’t know. 
What her fate held further of evil she could n’t guess. 
But at least, she thought, it would be in her own hands. 
It wasn’t. Unexpectedly and mercifully was it put 
into the abler and stronger hands of the Butterfly Man. 

Now, that night Flint had found himself unable to 
work. He was unaccountably depressed. He couldn’t 
read; even the Bible, opened at his favorite John, had n’t 
any comfort for him. He shoved the book aside, snatched 


342 SLIPPY McGEE 

hat and overcoat, and fled to his refuge the healing out- 
of-doors. 

He trudged the country roads for awhile, then turned 
toward town, intending to pass by the Eustis house. It 
wasn’t the first time he had passed the Eustis house at 
night of late, and just to see it asleep in the midst of 
its gardens steadied him and made him smile at the vague 
fears he entertained. 

He was almost up to the gate when a girl emerged 
from it, and he stiffened in his tracks, for it was Mary 
Virginia. A second later, and they stood face to face. 

4 * Don’t he alarmed, it is I, Flint,” he said in his quiet 
voice. And then he asked directly: ‘ ‘ Why are you out 
alone at this hour ? Where are you going ? ’ ’ 

“To—to the Parish House,” she stammered. She was 
greatly startled by his sudden appearance. 

“Exactly,” said the Butterfly Man, with meaning, 
and relieved her of her satchel. He asked no questions, 
offered no comments; but as quickly as he could he got 
her to his own rooms, put Kerry on guard, and ran for 
help. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


ST. STANISLAUS CROOKS HIS ELBOW 


M ARY VIRGINIA’S voice trailed into silence 
and she sank back into her chair, staring 
somberly at the fire. Her face marked with 
tears, the long braids of her hair over her shoulders, she 
looked so like a sad and chidden child that the piteous¬ 
ness of her would have moved and melted harder hearts 
than ours. 

The Butterfly Man had listened without an interrup¬ 
tion. He sat leaning slightly forward, knees crossed, 
the left arm folded to support the elbow of the right, and 
his chin in his cupped right hand. His eyes had the 
piercing clear directness of an eagle’s; they burned with 
an unwavering pale flame. Shrewder far than I, he 
saw the great advantage of knowing the worst, of at last 
thoroughly understanding Hunter and Inglesby and the 
motives which moved them. He had, too, a certain 
tolerance. These two had merely acted according to 
their lights; he had not expected any more or less, there¬ 
fore he was not surprised now into an undue con¬ 
demnation. 

But the fighting instinct rose rampant in me. My 
hands are De Ranee hands, the hands of soldiers as well 
as of priests, and they itched for a weapon, preferably 
a sword. Horrified and astonished, suffocating with 
343 


SLIPPY McGEE 


3H 

anger, I had no word at command to comfort this victim 
of abominable cunning. Indeed, what could I say; 
what could I do? I looked helplessly at the Butterfly 
Man, and the stronger man looked back at me, gravely 
and impassively. 

‘ ‘ But what is to be done ? ’’ I groaned. 

He seemed to know, for he said at once: 

4 ‘Call Madame. Tell her to bring some extra wraps. 
I am going to take Mary Virginia home, and Madame will 
go with us.” 

“But why shouldn’t she stay here?” 

“Because she’d better be at home to-morrow morning, 
parson. We ’re not supposed to know anything of her 
affairs, and I’d rather she did n’t appear at the Parish 
House. Also, she needs sleep right now more than she 
needs anything else, and one sleeps better in one’s own 
bed. Madame will see that she goes to hers and stays 
there. ’ ’ 

I was perfectly willing to commit the affair into John 
Flint’s hands. But Mary Virginia demurred. 

“No. I want to stay here! I don’t want to go home, 
Padre.” 

Flint shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said mildly, 
“but I’m going to take you home.” He looked so in¬ 
exorable that Mary Virginia shrugged her shoulders. 

“Oh, all right, Mr. Flint, I ’ll go,” said she. “What 
difference does it make? I ’ll even go to bed—as I’m 
told.” And she added in a tone of indescribable bitter¬ 
ness: “I have read that men lie down and sleep peace¬ 
fully the night before they are hanged. Well, I sup¬ 
pose they could: they had n’t anything but death to face 
on the morrow, but I—” and she caught her breath. 


ST. STANISLAUS CROOKS HIS ELBOW 345 


“Why not take it for granted to-night that you ’ll he 
looked after to-morrow?” suggested Flint. “Mary Vir¬ 
ginia, nothing’s ever so bad as it’s going to be.” 

“Oh, yes, I ’ll be looked after to-morrow!” said she, 
bitingly. “Mr. Inglesby will see to that!” She cov¬ 
ered her face with her hands. 

“Oh, I don’t know!” The Butterfly Man shut his 
mouth on the words like a knife. “Inglesby may think 
he’s going to, but somehow 1 think he won’t.” 

“Ah!” said she scornfully. “Perhaps you ’ll be able 
to stop him?” 

“Perhaps,” he agreed. “If I don’t, somebody or 
something else will. It’s very unlucky to be too lucky 
too long. You see, everybody’s got to get what’s com¬ 
ing to them, and it generally comes hardest when they’ve 
tied themselves up to the notion they ’re It. Somehow 
I fancy Mr. Inglesby’s due to come considerable of a 
cropper around about now. ’ ’ 

“Between now and to-morrow night?” she wondered, 
with sad contempt. 

“Why not? Anything can happen between a night 
and a night.” He looked at her with shrewd appreci¬ 
ation: “You have taken yourself so seriously,” said 
he, “that you’ve pretty nearly muddled yourself into 
being tragic. Those fellows knew who they were dealing 
with when they tackled you . They could bet the limit 
you’d never tell. So long as you did n’t tell, so long as 
they had nobody but you to deal with, they had you 
where they wanted you. But now maybe things might 
happen that haven’t been printed in the program.” 

“What things?” she mocked somberly. 

“I don’t know, yet,” he admitted. “But I do know 


346 


SLIPPY McGEE 


there is always a way out of everything except the grave. 
The thing is to find the right way. That’s up to the 
Padre and me. Parson, would you mind going after 
Madame now, please? The sooner w T e go the better/’ 

Have I not said my mother is the most wonderful of 
women? I waked her in the small hours with the 
startling information that Mary Virginia was downstairs 
in John Flint’s workroom, and that she herself must 
dress and accompany her home. And my mother, 
though she looked her stark bewilderment, plagued me 
with no questions. 

‘ ‘ She is in great trouble, and she needs you. Hurry. ’ ’ 

Madame slid out of her bed and reached for her neatly 
folded garments. 

‘ * Wait in the hall, Armand; I will be with you in ten 
minutes.” And she was, wrapped and hatted. 

Once in the workroom, she cast a deep and searching 
woman-glance at the pale girl in the chair. Her face 
was so sweet with motherliness and love and pity, and 
that profound comprehension the best women show to 
each other, that I felt my throat contract. Gathered 
into Madame’s embrace, Mary Virginia clung to her old 
friend dumbly. Madame had but one question: 

“My child, have you told John Flint and my son what 
this trouble of yours is?” 

“Yes; I had to, I had to!” 

“Thank the good God for that!” said my mother 
piously. “Now we will go home, dearest, and you can 
sleep in peace—you have nothing more to worry about! ’ ’ 

The clasp of the comforting arms, the sweet serenity 
of the mild eyes, and above all the little lady’s perfect 
confidence, aroused Mary Virginia out of her torpor. 


ST. STANISLAUS CROOKS HIS ELBOW 347 

She felt that she no longer stood alone at the mercy of 
the merciless. Bundled in the wraps my mother had 
provided, she paused at the door. 

‘T think you will forgive me any trouble I may cause 
you, because I am sure all of you love me. And what¬ 
ever comes, I will be brave enough to face and to bear it. 
Padre, dear Padre, you understand, don’t you?” 

“My child, my darling child, I understand.” 

“I ’ll be back in half an hour, parson,” the Butterfly 
Man remarked meaningly. Then the three melted into 
the night. 

Left alone, I was far from sharing Madame’s simple 
faith in our ability to untangle this miserable snarl. I 
knew now the temper of the men we had to deal with. 
I also understood that in cases like this the Southern 
trigger-finger is none too steady. Seen from a certain 
point of view, if ever men deserved an unconditional and 
thorough killing, these two did. Yet this homicidal 
specter turned me cold, for Mary Virginia’s sake. 

For Eustis himself I could see nothing but ruin ahead, 
but I wished passionately to help the dear girl who had 
come to me in her stress. But what was one to do? 
How should one act? 

I sat there dismally enough, my chin sunk upon my 
breast; for as a plotter, a planner, a conspirator, I am 
a particularly hopeless failure. I have no sense of in¬ 
trigue, and the bare idea of plotting reduces me to stupe¬ 
faction. 

Perhaps because I am a priest by instinct, I always dis¬ 
cover in myself the instant need of prayer when con¬ 
fronted by the unusual and the difficult. I have prayed 
over seemingly hopeless problems in my time and I think 


348 


SLIPPY McGEE 


I have been led to a clear solution of many of them. 
Major Cartwright insists that this is merely because I 
bring desire and will to bear upon a given point and so 
release an irresistible natural force. He says prayer is 
as much a science as, say, mathematics—such and such its 
units, and such and such its fixed results. Well, maybe 
so. All I know is that when I beseech aid I think I 
receive it. 

So I ran over to the church and let myself in. I felt 
that at least for a few minutes I must kneel before the 
altar and implore help for her who was like my own 
child to me. 

The empty church was quite black save for the sanc¬ 
tuary lamp and the little red votive lights burning before 
the statues of the saints and of our Lady. All these 
many little lights only cast the veriest ghosts of bright¬ 
ness upon the darkness, but the white altar was revealed 
by the larger glow of the sanctuary lamp. There it 
shone with a mild and pure luster, unfailing, calm, 
steady, burning through the night, the sign and symbol 
of that light of Love which cannot fail, but burns and 
burns and burns forever and forever before an altar that 
is the infinite universe itself. 

My little-faith, my ready-to-halt faith, raised its head 
above the encompassing waters; the wild turmoil and 
torment died away: . . . after the earthquake and the 
fire and the whirlwind, the still small voice. . . . 

Then I, to whom life at best can only be working and 
waiting, was for a space able to pray for her to whom life 
should be “as the light of the morning, when the sun 
riseth, even a clear morning without clouds; and as the 
tender grass by clear shining after rain.” I remembered 


ST. STANISLAUS CROOKS HIS ELBOW 349 


her as she had first come to me, a little loving child to fill 
my empty heart, the poor clay heart that cannot even 
hold fast to the love of God but by these frail all-power¬ 
ful ties of simple human affection. And when I thought 
of her now, so young and so sore-beset, a bird caught in 
the snare of the fowler, I beat my breast for pity and 
for grief. Oh, how should I help her, how? 

I turned my head, and there stood St. Stanislaus upon 
his pedestal, the memorial lights flickering upon his long 
robe, his smooth boy’s face, his sheaf of lilies. I re¬ 
garded him rather absently. Something stirred in 
my consciousness; something I always had to remember 
in connection w r ith St. Stanislaus. . . . 

Across my mind as across a screen flashed a series of 
pictures—a mangled tramp carried into the Parish 
House, my mother watching with a concerned and 
shocked face, and the hall mud-stained by the trampling 
feet of the clumsy bearers; the shaggy Poles, caps off, 
turning over to me as to high authority the heavy oilskin 
package they had found; I opening that package later 
and standing amazed and startled before its contents; 
and that same package, hidden under my cassock, car¬ 
ried over to the church and placed for security and se¬ 
crecy in the keeping of the little saint. Well, that had 
been quite right; there had been nothing else to do; one 
had to be secret and careful when one had in one’s keep¬ 
ing the tools of that notorious burglar, Slippy McGee. 

Small wonder that I did not connect those pictures 
with the fate of Mary Virginia Eustis! No, I did not 
immediately grasp their tremendous bearing upon the 
petitions I was repeating. And all the while, with a 
dull insistence, an enraging persistence, they flickered 


350 


SLIPPY McGEE 


before the eyes of my memory—the Poles, the screaming 
cursing tramp; Westmoreland pondering aloud as to 
why he had been permitted to save so apparently worth¬ 
less a life; and the little saint hiding from the eyes of 
men all traces of lost Slippy McGee. Nor, more 
curiously yet, did I connect them with the Butterfly 
Man. The Butterfly Man was somebody else altogether, 
another and a different person, a man of whom even one’s 
secretest thoughts were admiring and respectful. He 
was so far removed from the very shadow of such things 
as these, that it did one’s conscience a sort of violence to 
think of him in connection with them. I tried to dis¬ 
miss the memories from my mind. I wished to concen¬ 
trate wholly upon the problem of Mary Virginia. 

And then that mysterious, hidden self-under-self that 
lives in us far, far beneath thought and instinct and con¬ 
science and heredity and even consciousness itself, rose to 
the surface with a message: 

Slippy McGee had been the greatest cracksman in all 
America. . . . 11 Honest to God, skypilot, I can open any 
box made, easy as easy!” . . . And even as'his tools 
were hidden in St. Stanislaus , Slippy McGee himself 
was hidden in John Flint. 

Recoiling, I clung to the altar railing. What dreadful 
thing was I contemplating, what fearful temptation was 
assailing me, here under the light of the sanctuary lamp ? 
I looked reproachfully at St. Stanislaus, as if that 
seraphic youth had betrayed my confidence. I suspected 
him of being too anxious to rid himself of the ambiguous 
trust imposed upon him without so much as a by-your- 
leave. Perhaps he was secretly irked at the use to which 
his painted semblance had been put, and seized this first 


ST. STANISLAUS CROOKS HIS ELBOW 351 


opportunity to extricate himself from a position in 
which the boldest saint of them all might well hesitate 
to find himself. 

I began to consider John Flint as he was, the work 
he had accomplished, the splendid structure of that life 
slowly and laboriously made over and lived so cleanly 
in the light of day. Not only had that old evil person-, 
ality been sloughed off like a larval skin; he had come 
forth from it another creature, a being lovable, wise, 
tender, full of charm. Even the hint of melancholy 
that was becoming more and more a part of him 
endeared him to others, for the broader and brighter the 
light into Tvhich he was steadily mounting, the more 
marked and touching was this softening shadow. 

And I who had been the accoucheur of his genius, I 
who had watched and prayed and ministered beside the 
cradle of his growth, w~as I of all men to threaten his 
overthrow? Alas, what madness was upon me that I 
was evoking before the very altar the grim ghost of 
Slippy McGee? 

There passed before me in procession the face of 
Laurence with all its boyish bloom stripped from it and 
the glory of its youth vanished; and the bowed and 
humbled head of James Eustis, one of the large and noble 
souls of this world; and the innocent beauty of Mary 
Virginia, wistfully appealing; followed them the beau¬ 
tiful ruthless face of Hunter, dazzlingly blonde, gold¬ 
haired as Baldur; and the piglike eyes and heavy jowl 
of Inglesby, brutally dominant; and then the dear whim¬ 
sical visage of the Butterfly Man himself. They passed; 
and I fell to praying, with a sort of still desperation, 
for all of us. 


352 


SLIPPY McGEE 


And all the while the steady and rosy light of the 
sanctuary lamp fell upon me, and the little lights flick¬ 
ered before the silent saints. I took myself in hand, 
forced myself into self-control. I did not minimize one 
risk nor slur one danger. I knew exactly what was at 
stake. And having done this, I decided upon my course: 

‘‘If he has thought of this himself, then I will help. 
But if he has not, I will not suggest it, no, no matter 
what happens.’’ 

I told myself I would say ten more Hailmarys, and 
I said them, with an Ourfather at the end. And with¬ 
out further praying I got to my feet. The church 
seemed to be full of breathless whisperings, as if it 
watched and listened while I moved over to Stanislaus 
and tipped him backward. He is a rather heavy and 
sizable boy for all his saintly slimness. Up in the hollow 
inside, in the crook of his arm, lay the oilskin package he 
had kept these long years through, waiting for to-night. 

“If ever you prayed for mortals in peril, pray, for 
the love of God, for all of us this night!” I told him. 
And with the package in a fold of my cassock I went 
back across the dark garden and let myself into the 
Butterfly Mail’s rooms, and was hardly inside the door 
when he himself returned. 

“Didn’t meet a soul. And they got in without wak¬ 
ing anybody in the house,” said he complacently, rub¬ 
bing his hands before the fire. “I waited until they 
showed a light upstairs. She’s all right, now Madame’s 
with her.” 

“Have you—have you thought of anything—any 
way, John?” I quavered, and wondered if he heard my 
heart dunting against my ribs. 


ST. STANISLAUS CROOKS HIS ELBOW 353 


“Why, I ’ve thought that she’s got until to-morrow 
night to come to terms,” said he, and turned to face me. 
“And she can’t accept them. Nobody could—that is, 
not a girl like her. As for Inglesby, he might push 
Eustis under, but he would n’t have been so cocksure of 
her if it was n’t for those letters. She’s been afraid of 
what might happen if Eustis or Laurence found out about 
them—somebody ran the risk of being put to bed with a 
shovel. There’s where they had her. A bit unbearable 
to think of, is n’t it ?” He spoke so mildly that I looked 
up with astonishment and some disappointment. 

“Why,” said I, ruefully, “if that’s as far as you’ve 
gone, we are still at the starting point.” 

“No need to go farther and fare worse, parson,” said 
he, equably. “I saw that the first minute I could see 
anything but red. Yet do you know, when she was 
telling us about it, I thought like a fool of everything 
but the right thing, from sandbagging and shangliaing 
Inglesby, down to holding up Hunter with an auto¬ 
matic ? 

“When I got my reason on straight, I went back to 
the starting point—the letters, parson, the letter in the 
safe in Hunter’s office. Given the letters she’d be free 
—the one thing Inglesby doesn’t want to happen. 
We’ve got to have those letters.” 

My mouth was parched as with fever and I saw him 
through a blur. 

“I don’t know,” he went on, “if you agree with me, 
parson, but to my mind the best way to fight the devil 
is with fire. What did you do with those tools?” 

“Tools?” in a dry whisper. “Tools, John?” 

“Tools. Kit. Layout. You had them. Could you 


354 


SLIPPY McGEE 


put your hand on them in a hurry to-night? Don’t 
stare so, man! And for the Lord’s love don’t you tell 
me you destroyed them! What did you do with my 
tools?” 

The four winds roared in my ears, and one lifted the 
hair on my scalp, as if the Rider on the Pale Horse had 
passed by. By way of reply I placed a heavy package 
on the table before him, slumped into my chair, and 
covered my face with my hands. Oh, Stanislaus, little 
saint, what had we done between us to-night to the But¬ 
terfly Man ? 

When I looked up again he had risen. "With his 
hands gripping the edge of the table until the knuckles 
showed white, and his neck stretched out, he was staring 
with all his eyes. A low whistle escaped him. Wonder, 
incredulity, a sort of ironic amusement, and a growing, 
iron-jawed determination, expressed themselves in his 
changing countenance. Once or twice he wet his lips 
and swallowed. Then he sat down again, deliberately, 
and fixed upon me a long and somewhat disconcerting 
stare, as if he were rearranging and tabulating his esti¬ 
mate of Father Armand Jean De Ranee. He took his 
head in his hands, and with slitted eyes considered the 
immediate course of action to which the possession of 
that package committed him. One surmised that he was 
weighing and providing for every possible contingency. 

Tentatively he spread out his fine hands, palms upper¬ 
most, and flexed them; then, turning them, he laid them 
flat upon the table and again spread out his fingers. 
They were notable hands—shapely, supple, strong as 
steel, the thin-skinned fingertips as delicate and sensitive 
of touch as the antennae he was used to handling. They 


ST. STANISLAUS CROOKS HIS ELBOW 355 


were even more capable than of old, because of the ex¬ 
quisite work they had been trained to accomplish, work 
to which only the most skilled lapidary’s is compar¬ 
able. Apparently satisfied, he drew the bundle toward 
him. Before he opened it he lifted those cool, blue, and 
ironic eyes to mine; and I am sure I was by far the paler 
and more shaken of the two. 

4 ‘They were in the crook of St. Stanislaus’ arm.” 
I tried to keep my voice steady. ‘ ‘ I was praying—when 
you were gone.” Somehow, I did not find it easy to 
explain to him. “And ... I remembered. . . . And 
I brought them with me ... so in case you also . . . 
remembered—” I could go no further. I broke into a 
sort of groaning cry: “Oh, John, John! My son, my 
son!” 

“Steady!” said he. “Of course you remembered, 
parson. It’s the only way. Did n’t I tell her there’s 
always a -way out? Well, here it is!” His funny, 
twisted smile came to his lips; it twisted the heart in my 
breast. No thought of himself, of what this thing might 
mean to him, seemed to cross his mind. 

“I prayed,” said I, almost sobbing, “I prayed. And, 
John, there stood St. Stanislaus—” I stopped again, 
choking. 

He nodded, understandingly. He was methodically 
spreading out the not unbeautiful instruments. And as 
he picked them up one by one, handling them with his 
strong and expert fingers and testing each with a hawk- 
eyed scrutiny, a most curious and subtle change stole 
over the Butterfly Man. 

I felt as if I were witnessing the evocation of some¬ 
thing superhuman. Horrified and fascinated, I saw 


356 


SLIPPY McGEE 


what might be called tl^e apotheosis of Slippy McGee, 
so far above him was it, come back and subtly and 
awfully blend with my scientist. It was as if two strong 
and powerful individualities had deliberately joined 
forces to forge a more vital being than either, since the 
training, knowledge, skill and intellect of both would be 
his to command. If such a man as this ever stepped 
over the deadline he would not be merely “the slickest 
cracksman in America”; he would be one of the master 
criminals of the earth. I fancy he must have felt this 
intoxicating new access of power, for there emanated 
from him something of a fierce and exalted delight. A 
potentiality, as yet neither good nor evil, he suggested 
a spiritual and physical dynamo. 

He gave a tigerish purr of pleasure over the tools, 
handling them with the fingers of the artist and admiring 
them with the eyes of the connoisseur. “The best I 
could get. All made to order. Tested blue steel. I 
never kicked at the price, and you wouldn’t believe me 
if I told you what this layout cost in cold cash. But 
they paid. Good stuff always pays in the long run. It 
was lucky I winded the cops on that last job, or I’d 
have had to leave them. As it was, I just had time to 
grab them up before I hit the trail for the skyline. They 
don’t need anything but a little rubbing—a saint’s elbow 
must be a snug berth. I wish I had some juice, 
though.” 

“Juice?” 

“Nitroglycerine,” very gently, as to a child. “It 
does not make very much noise and it saves time when 
you ’re in a hurry—as you generally are, in this busi¬ 
ness,” he smiled at me quizzically. “Not that one can’t 


ST. STANISLAUS CROOKS HIS ELBOW 357 


get along without it.” The swift fingers paused for a 
fraction of a second to give a steel drill an affectionate 
pat. “I used to know one of the best ever, who never 
used anything but a particular drill, a pet bit, and his 
ear. Somebody snitched though, so the last I heard of 
him he was doing a twenty-year stretch. Pity, too. He 
was an artist in his line, that fellow. And his taste in 
neckties I have never seen equaled.” The Butterfly 
Man’s voice, evenly pitched and pleasantly modulated, 
a cultivated voice, was quite casual. 

He gathered his tools together and replaced them in 
the old worn case. “ Wonder if that safe is a side- 
bolt?” he mused. “Most likely. I dare say it’s only 
the average combination. A one-armed yegg could open 
most of the boxes in this town with a tin button-hook. 
Anyhow, it would have to be a new-laid lock I could n’t 
open. If he’s left the letters in the safe we ’re all right 
—so here’s hoping he has. I certainly don’t want to go 
to his room unless I have to. Hunter’s not the sort to 
sit on his hands, and I’m not feeling what you’d call 
real amiable.” 

A glance at his face, with little glinting devil-lights 
shining far back in his eyes, set me to babbling: 

“Oh, no, no, no, no, that would never do! God forbid 
that you should go to his rooms! He must have left 
them in the safe! He had to leave them in the safe! ’ ’ 

“Sure he’s left them in the safe: why should n’t he?” 
he made light of my palpable fears. Slipping into his 
gray overcoat, he pulled on his felt hat, thrust his hands 
into his weliworn dogskin gloves, and picked up the 
package. Nobody in the world ever looked less like a 
criminal than this brown-faced, keen-eyed man with his 


358 


SLIPPY McGEE 


pleasant bearing. Why, this was John Flint, the kindly 
bug-hunter all Appleboro loved, “that good and kind 
and Christian man, our brother John Flint, sometimes 
known as the Butterfly Man.” 

“Now, don’t you worry any at all, parson,” he was 
saying. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. I ’ll take 
care of myself, and I ’ll get those letters if they ’re in 
existence. I’ve got to get them. What else was 1 born 
for, I’d like to know ? ’ ’ 

The question caught me like a lash across the face. 

“You were born,” I said violently, “to win an horn 
ored name, to do a work of inestimable value. And you 
are deliberately and quixotically risking it, and I allow 
you to risk it, because a girl’s happiness hangs in the 
balance! If you are detected it means your own ruin, 
for you could never explain away those tools. Yes! 
You are facing possible ruin and disgrace. You might 
have to give up your work for years—have you consid¬ 
ered that? Oh, John Flint, stop a moment, and reflect! 
There is nothing in this for you, John, nothing but dan¬ 
ger. No, there’s nothing in it for you, except—” 

He held up his hand, with a gesture of dignity and 
reproach. 

“—except that I get my big chance to step in and 
save the girl I happen to love, from persecution and 
wretchedness, if not worse,” said he simply. “If I can 
do that, what the devil does it matter what happens to 
me? You talk about name and career! Man, man, 
what could anything be worth to me if I had to know 
she was unhappy?” 

The tides of emotion rushed over him and flooded his 
face into a sliining-eyed passion nakedly unashamed and 


ST. STANISLAUS CROOKS HIS ELBOW 359 

beautiful. And I had thought him casual, carelessly 
accepting a risk! 

“Parson,” he wondered, “didn’t you know? No, I 
suppose it would n’t occur to anybody that a man of my 
sort should love a girl of hers. But I do. I think I 
did the first time I ever laid eyes on her, and she a girl- 
kid in a red jacket, with curls about her shoulders and 
a face like a little new rose in the morning. Remember 
her eyes, parson, how blue they were? And how she 
looked at me, so friendly— me, mind you, as I was! 
And she handed me a Catocala moth, and she gave me 
Kerry. ‘You ’re such a good man, Mr. Flint!’ says she, 
and by God, she meant it! Little Mary Virginia! And 
she got fast hold of something in me that was never 
anybody’s but hers, that couldn’t ever belong to any¬ 
body but her, no, not if I lived for a thousand years and 
had the pick of the earth. 

‘ ‘ It was n’t until she came back, though, that I knew 
i belonged to her who could never belong to me. If I 
was dead at one end of the world and she dead at the 
other, we could n’t be any farther apart than life has put 
us two who can see and speak to each other every day! ’ ’ 

“And yet—” he looked at me now and laughed boy¬ 
ishly, “and yet it isn’t for Mayne, that she loves, it 
isn’t for you, nor Eustis, nor any man but me alone to 
help her, by being just what I am and what I have been! 
Risks? Fail her? I? I couldn’t fail her. I ’ll get 
those letters for her to-night, if Hunter has hidden them 
in the beam of his eye!” He turned to me with a sudden 
white glare of ferocity that appalled me. “I could kill 
him with my hands,” said he, with a quiet cold deadli¬ 
ness to chill one’s marrow, ‘ * and Inglesby after him, for 


360 


SLIPPY McGEE 


wliat they’ve made her endure! When I think of to¬ 
night—that brute daring to touch her with his swine’s 
mouth—I—I—” 

His face was convulsed; but after a moment’s fierce 
struggle the disciplined spirit conquered. 

“No, there’s been enough trouble for her without 
that, so they ’re safe from me, the both of them. I 
wouldn’t do anything to imperil her happiness to save 
my own life. She was born to be happy—and she’s 
going to have her chance. I ’ll see to that, Mary Vir¬ 
ginia!” 

The man seemed to grow, to expand, to tower giant¬ 
like before me. Next to the white heat of this lava- 
flow of pure feeling, all other loves lavished upon Mary 
Virginia during her fortunate life seemed dwarfed and 
petty. Beside it Inglesby’s furious desire shrunk into 
a loathsome thing, small and crawling; and my own af¬ 
fection was only an old priest’s; and even the strong 
and faithful love of Laurence appeared pale and boyish 
in the light of this majestic passion which gave all and 
in return asked only the right to serve and to save. 

“Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon 
thine arm; for love is strong as death . . . 

“Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the 
floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance 
of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.” 

Trying desperately to cling to such rags and tatters 
of common sense as I could lay hold upon: 

“There is your duty to yourself,” I managed to say. 
“Yes, yes, one owes a great duty to oneself and one’s 
work, John. You are risking too much—name, friends, 
honor, work, freedom. For God’s sake, John, do not 


ST. STANISLAUS CROOKS HIS ELBOW 361 

underestimate the danger. You have not had time to 
consider it.” 

“Ho! Listen to the parson preaching self-interest!” 
he mocked. “He ’s a fine one to do that—at this hour 
of his life!” 

“I tell you you endanger everything,” I insisted. I 
might bring that package, but at least he shouldn’t 
rush upon the knife unwarned. 

“I know that—I’m no fool. And 1 tell you it’s 
worth while. To-night makes me and my whole life 
w T orth while, the good and the bad of it together. 
Risks? I ’ll take all that’s coming. You stay here and 
say some prayers for me, parson, if it makes you feel 
any better. As for me, I’m off.” 

At that I lost my every last shred of commonplace 
everyday sanity, and let myself swing without further 
reserve into the wild current of the night. 

“Oh, very well!” said I shrilly. “You will take 
chances, you will run risks, hein? My friend, you do 
not stir out of this house this night without me/” He 
stared, as well he might, but I folded my arms and 
stared back. Let him leave me, bent on such an errand ? 
I to sit at home idly, awaiting the issue, whatever it 
might be? 

“I mean it, John Flint. I am going with you. Was 
it not I, then, who saved those tools and had them ready 
to your hand? Whatever happens to you now happens 
to me as well. It is quite useless for you to argue, to 
scowl, to grind the teeth, to swear like that. And it will 
be dangerous to try to trick me: I am going!” 

For he was protesting, violently and profanely. His 
profanity was so sincere, so earnest, so heartfelt, that it 


SLIPPY McGEE 


362 

mounted into heights of real eloquence. Also, he did 
everything but knock me down and lock me indoors. 

“Whatever happens to you happens to me,” I re¬ 
peated doggedly, and I was not to be moved. I had a 
hazy notion that somehow my being with him might pro¬ 
tect him in case of any untoward happening, and min¬ 
imize his risks. 

I ran into his bedroom and clapped his best hat on 
my head, leaving my biretta on his bed; and I put on 
his new dark overcoat over my cassock. Both the bor¬ 
rowed garments were too big for me, the hat coming 
down over my ears, the coat-sleeves over my hands. I 
being as thin as a peeled willow-wand, and the clothes 
hanging upon me as on a clothes-rack, I dare say I cut 
a sad and ludicrous figure enough. Flint, standing 
watching me with his burglarious bundle under his arm, 
gave an irrepressible chuckle and his eyes crinkled. 

II Parson,’’ said he solemnly, “I ’ve seen all sorts and 
sizes and colors and conditions of crooks, up and down 
the line, in my time and generation, but take it from me 
you ’re a libel and an outrage on the whole profession. 
Why, you crazy he-angel, you’d break their hearts just 
to look at you! ’ ’ And he grinned. At a moment like 
that, he grinned, wfith a sort of gay and light-hearted 
diablerie . They are a baffling and inexplicable folk, the 
Irish. I suppose God loves the Irish because He 
doesn’t really know how else to take them. 

“It will break my own heart, and possibly my moth¬ 
er’s and Mary Virginia’s will break to keep it company, 
if anything evil happens to you this night,” said I, 
severely. I was in no grinning humor, me. 

He reached over and carefully buttoned, with one 


ST. STANISLAUS CROOKS HIS ELBOW 363 


hand, the too-big collar about my throat. For a mo¬ 
ment, with that odd, little-boy gesture of his, he held 
on to my sleeve. He looked down at me; and his eyes 
grew wide, his face melted into a whimsical tenderness. 

“When you get to heaven, parson, you ’ll keep them 
all busy a hundred years and a day trying to cut and 
make a suit of sky clothes big enough to fit your real 
measure,” said he, irrelevantly. “You real thing in 
holy sports, come on, since you’ve got to! ” With that 
he blew out the light, and we stepped into the cold and 
windy night. It was ten minutes after three. 

Armed with bottle-belt, knapsack, and net, many a 
happy night had I gone forth with the Butterfly Man 
a-hunting for such as we might find of our chosen prey. 
Armed now with nothing more nor less formidable than 
the black rosary upon which my hand shut tightly, I, 
Armand De Ranee, priest and gentleman, walked forth 
with Slippy McGee in those hours when deep sleep falls 
upon the spirit of man, for to aid and encourage and 
abet and assist and connive at, nothing more nor less 
than burglary. 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE I O U OF SLIPPY MC GEE 

T HE wind that precedes the dawn was blowing, 
a freakish and impish wind though not a 
vicious one. One might imagine it animated 
by those sportive and capricious nature-spirits an old 
Father of the church used to call the monkeys of God. 
Every now and then a great deluge of piled-up clouds 
broke into tossing billows and went rolling and tumbling 
across the face of the sky, and in and out of these swirl¬ 
ing masses the high moon played hide-and-seek and the 
stars showed like pin-points. Such street lights as we 
have being extinguished at midnight, the tree-shaded 
sidewalks were in impenetrable shadow, the gardens that 
edged them were debatable ground, full of grotesque 
silhouettes, backgrounded by black bulks of silent 
houses all profoundly asleep. As for us, we also were 
shadows, whose feet were soundless on the sandy side¬ 
walks. We moved in the dark like travelers in the City 
of Dreadful Night. 

And so we came at last to the red-brick bank, ap¬ 
proaching it by the long stretch of the McCall garden 
which adjoins it. For years there have been battered 
“For Sale” signs tacked onto its trees and fences, but 
no one ever came nearer purchasing the McCall prop¬ 
erty than asking the price. Folks say the McCalls be¬ 
lieve that Appleboro is going to rival New York some 
364 


THE I O U OF SLIPPY McGEE 365 


of these days, and are holding their garden for sky¬ 
scraper sites. 

I was very grateful to the McCall estimate of Apple- 
boro’s future, for the long stretch shadowed by their 
overgrown shrubbery brought us to the door leading to 
the upstair offices, without any possible danger of de¬ 
tection. 

The bank had been a stately old home before busi¬ 
ness seized upon it, tore out its whole lower floors, 
and converted it into a strong and commodious bank. 
It is the one building in all Appleboro that keeps 
a light burning all night, a proceeding some citizens 
regard as unnecessary and extravagant; for is not Old 
Man Jackson there employed as night watchman? Old 
Man Jackson lost a finger and a piece of an ear before 
Appomattox, and the surrender deprived him of all op¬ 
portunity to repay in kind. It was his cherished hope 
that “some smartybus crooks ’d try to git in my bank 
some uh these hyuh nights—an’ I cert’nly hope to God 
they ’ll be Yankees, that’s all.” 

Somehow, they had n’t tried. Perhaps they had heard 
of Old Man Jackson’s watchful waiting and knew he 
wasn’t at all too proud to fight. His quarters w r as a 
small room in the rear of the building, which he shared 
with a huge gray tomcat named Mosby. With those two 
on guard, Appleboro knew its bank w^as as impregnable 
as Gibraltar. But as nobody could possibly gain en¬ 
trance to the vaults from above, the upper portion of the 
building, given over to offices, was of course quite un¬ 
guarded. 

One reached these upper offices by a long walled pas¬ 
sageway to the left, where the sidewall of the bank ad- 


366 


SLIPPY McGEE 


joins the McCall garden. The door leading to this stair¬ 
way is not flush with the street, but is set back some 
feet; this forms a small alcove, which the light flickering 
through the bank’s barred windows does not quite reach. 

John Flint stepped into this small cavern and I after 
him. As if by magic the- locked door opened, and we 
moved noiselessly up the narrow stairs with tin signs 
tacked on them. At the head of the flight we paused 
while the flashlight gave us our bearings. Here a short 
passage opens into the wide central hall. Inglesby’s 
offices are to the left, with the windows opening upon the 
tangled wilderness of the McCall place. 

Eight in front of us half a dozen sets of false teeth, 
arranged in a horrid circle around a cigar-box full of 
extracted molars such as made one cringe, grinned bit- 
ingly out of a glass case before the dentist’s office door. 
The effect was of a lipless and ghastly laugh. 

Before the next door a fatuously smiling pink-and- 
white bust simpered out of the Beauty Parlor’s display- 
case, a bust elaborately coiffured with pounds of yellow 
hair in which glittered rhinestone buckles. Hair of 
every sort and shade and length was clustered about 
her, as if she were the presiding genius of some bar¬ 
barian scalping-cult. Seen at that hour, in the pale 
luster of the flashlight, this sorry plunder of lost teeth 
and dead hair made upon one a melancholy impression, 
disparaging to humanity. I had scant time to moralize 
on hair and teeth, however, for Flint was stopping be¬ 
fore a ^oor the neat brass plate of which bore upon it: 


Mr. Inglesby. 


THE I O U OF SLIPPY McGEE 367 

Mr. Inglesby had a desk downstairs in the bank, in 
the little pompous room marked “President’s Office,” 
where at stated hours and times he presided grandly; 
just as he had a big bare office at the mills, where he 
was rather easy of access, willing to receive any one who 
might chance to catch him in. But these rooms we were 
entering without permission were the sanctum sanc¬ 
torum, the center of that wide web whose filaments em¬ 
braced and ensnared the state. It would be about as 
easy to stroll casually into the Vatican for an informal 
chat with the Holy Father, to walk unannounced into 
the presence of the Dalai Lama, or to drop in neighborly 
on the Tsar of all the Russias, as to penetrate unasked 
into these offices during the day. 

We stepped upon the velvet square of carpet covering 
the floor of what must have once been a very handsome 
guest chamber and was now a very handsome private 
office. One had to respect the simple and solid mag¬ 
nificence of the mahogany furnishings, the leather-cov¬ 
ered chairs, the big purposeful desk. Above the old- 
fashioned marble mantel hung a life-sized portrait in 
oils of Inglesby himself. The artist had done his sitter 
stern justice—one might call the result retribution; and 
one wondered if Inglesby realized how immensely re¬ 
vealing it was. There he sat, solid, successful, informed 
with a sort of brutal egotism that never gives quarter. 
In despite of a malevolent determination to look pleasant, 
his smile was so much more of a threat than a promise 
that one could wish for his own sake he had scowled 
instead. He is a throaty man, is Inglesby; and this, 
with an uncompromising squareness of forehead, a stiff- 


368 


SLIPPY McGEE 


ness of hair, and a hard hint of white in the eyes, lent 
him a lowering likeness to an unpedigreed bull. 

John Flint cast upon this charming likeness one brief 
and pregnant glance. 

“Regular old Durham shorthorn, isn’t he?” he com¬ 
mented in a low voice. “Wants to charge right out of 
his frame and trample. Take a look at that nose, par¬ 
son—like a double-barreled shotgun, for all the world! 
Beautiful brute, Inglesby. Makes you think of that 
minotaur sideshow they used to put over on the 
Greeks.” 

In view of Laurence and of Mary Virginia, 1 saw the 
resemblance. 

Mr. Hunter’s office was less formal than Mr. Ingles¬ 
by’s, and furnished with an exact and critical taste 
alien to Appleboro, where many a worthy citizen’s office 
trappings consist of an alpaca coat, a chair and a pine 
table, three or four fly-specked calendars and shabby 
ledgers, and a box of sawdust. To these may sometimes 
be added a pot of paste with a dead cockroach in it, or 
a hound dog either scratching fleas or snapping at flies. 

Here the square of carpet was brown as fallen pine- 
needles in October, the walls were a soft tan, the ceiling 
and woodwork ivory-toned. One saw between the win¬ 
dows a bookcase filled with handsomely bound books, 
and on top of it a few pieces of such old china as would 
enrapture my mother. The white marble mantel held 
one or two signed photographs in silver frames, a pair 
of old candlesticks of quaint and pleasing design, and 
a dull red pottery vase full of Japanese quince. There 
were a few good pictures on the walls—a gay impudent 
Detaille Lancer whose hardy face of a fighting French- 


THE I O U OF SLIPPY McGEE 369 

man warmed one’s heart; some sketches signed with 
notable American names; and above the mantel a female 
form clothed only in the ambient air, her long hair swept 
back from her shoulders, and a pearl-colored dove alight¬ 
ing upon her outstretched finger. 

I suppose one might call the whole room beautiful, for 
even the desk was of that perfection of simplicity whose 
cost is as rubies. It was not, however, a womanish 
room; there was no slightest hint of femininity in its 
uncluttered, sane, forceful orderliness. It was rather 
like Hunter himself—polished, perfect, with a note of 
finality and of fitness upon it like a hall-mark. Nothing 
out of keeping, nothing overdone. Even the red petal 
fallen from the pottery vase on the white marble mantel 
was a last note of perfection. 

Flint glanced about him with the falcon-glance that 
nothing escapes. For a moment the light stayed upon 
the nude figure over the mantel—the one real nude in 
all Appleboro, which cherishes family portraits of 
rakehelly old colonials in wigs, chokers, and tight-fitting 
smalls, and lolloping ladies with very low necks and six¬ 
teen petticoats, but where scandalized church-goers have 
been known to truss up a little plaster copy of the inane 
Greek Slave in a pocket-handkerchief, by way of needful 
drapery. 

4 ‘What I want to know is, why a lady should have to 
strip to the buff just to play with a pigeon?” breathed 
John Flint, and his tone was captious. 

It did not strike me as being to the last degree whim¬ 
sical, improbable, altogether absurd, that such a man 
should pause at such a time to comment upon art as he 
thinks it isn’t. On the contrary it was a consistent 


370 


SLIPPY McGEE 


and coherent feature of that astounding nightmare in 
which we figured. The absurd and the impossible al¬ 
ways happen in dreams. I am sure that if the dove on 
the woman’s finger had opened its painted bill and 
spoken, say about the binomial theorem, or the Effect of 
Too Much Culture upon Women’s Clubs, I should have 
listened with equal gravity and the same abysmal ab¬ 
sence of surprise. I pattered platitudinously: 

“The greatest of the Greeks considered the body di¬ 
vine in itself, my son, and so their noblest art was nude. 
Some moderns have thought there is no real art that is 
not nude. Truth itself is naked.” 

“Aha!” said my son, darkly. “I see! You take off 
your pants when you go out to feed your chickens, say, 
and you ’re not bughouse. You ’re art. Well, if Truth 
is naked, thank God the rest of us are liars!” 

What I have here set down was but the matter of a 
moment. Flint brushed it aside like a cobweb and set 
briskly about his real business. Over in the recess next 
to the fireplace was the safe, and before this he knelt. 

“Hold the light!” he ordered in a curt whisper. 
“There—like that. Steady now.” My hand closed as 
well upon the rosary I carried, and I clung to the beads 
as the shipwrecked cling to a spar. The familiar feel of 
them comforted me. 

I do not know to this day the make of that safe, nor 
its actual strength, and I have always avoided question¬ 
ing John Flint about it. I do know it seemed incredibly 
strong, big, heavy, ungetatable. There was a dark-col¬ 
ored linen cover on top of it, embroidered with yellow 
marguerites and their stiff green leaves. And there was 
a brass fern-jar with claw feet, and rings on the sides 


THE I O U OF SLIPPY McGEE 371 

that somehow made me think of fetters upon men’s 
wrists. 

**A little lower—to the left. So ! 9 9 he ordered, and 
with steady fingers I obeyed. He stood out sharply in 
the clear oval—the “cleverest crook in all America” at 
work again, absorbed in his task, expert, a mind-force 
pitting itself against inanimate opposition. He was 
smiling. 

The tools lay beside him and quite by instinct his hand 
reached out for anything it needed. I think he could 
have done his work blindfolded. Once I saw him lay 
his ear against the door, and I thought I heard a faint 
click. A gnawing rat might have made something like 
the noise of the drill biting its way. "With this excep¬ 
tion an appalling silence hung over the room. I could 
hardly breathe in it. I gripped the rosary and told it, 
bead after bead. 

“Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our 
death —” 

There are moments when time loses its power and 
ceases to be; before our hour we seem to have stepped 
out of it and into eternity, in which time does not 
exist, and wherein there can be no relation of time be¬ 
tween events. They stand still, or they stretch to indefi¬ 
nite and incredible lengths—all, all outside of time, 
which has no power upon them. So it was now. Every 
fraction of every second of every minute lengthened into 
centuries, eternities passed between minutes. The 
hashish-eater knows something of this terror of time, and 
I seemed to have eaten hashish that night. 

I could still see him crouching before the safe; and 
z\\ the while the eternities stretched and stretched on 


372 


SLIPPY McGEE 


either side of us, infinities I could only partly bridge 
over with Hailmarys and Ourfathers. 

“And lead us not into temptation . . . lout deliver 
us from evil . . 

Although I watched him attentively, being indeed un¬ 
able to tear my eyes away from him, and although I 
held the light for him with such a steady hand, I really 
do not know what he did, nor how he forced that safe. 
I understand it took him a fraction over fourteen min¬ 
utes. 

“Here she comes!” he breathed, and the heavy door 
was open, revealing the usual interior, with ledgers, and 
a fairsized steel money-vault, which also came open a 
moment later. Flint glanced over the contents, and 
singled out from other papers two packages of letters 
held together by stout elastic bands, and with pencil 
notations on the corner of each envelope, showing the 
dates. He ran over both, held up the smaller of the 
two, and I saw, with a grasp of inexpressible relief, the 
handwriting of Mary Virginia. 

He locked the vault, shut the heavy door of the rifled 
safe, and began to gather his tools together. 

“You have forgotten to put the other packages back,” 
I reminded him. I was in a raging fever of impatience 
to be gone, to fly with the priceless packet in, my 
hand. 

“No, I'm not forgetting. I saw a couple of the names 
on the envelopes and I rather think these letters will be 
a whole heap interesting to look over,” said he, imper¬ 
turbably. “It’s a hunch, parson, and I ’ve gotten in 
the habit of paying attention to hunches. I ’ll risk it 
on these, anyhow. They ’re in suspicious company and 


THE I O U OF SLIPPY McGEE 373 

I'd like to know why.” And lie thrust the package into 
the crook of his arm, along with the tools. 

The light was carefully flashed over every inch of the 
space we had traversed, to make sure that no slightest 
trace of our presence was left. As we walked through 
Inglesby’s office John Flint ironically saluted the life¬ 
like portrait: 

“You 've had a ring twisted in your nose for once, old 
sport!” said he, and led me into the dark hall. We 
moved and the same exquisite caution we had exercised 
upon entering, for we could n't afford to have Dan Jack¬ 
son's keen old ears detect footfalls overhead at that hour 
of the morning. Now we were at the foot of the long 
stairs, and Flint had soundlessly opened and closed the 
last door between us and freedom. And now we were 
once more in the open air, under the blessed shadow of 
the McCall trees, and walking close to their old weather¬ 
beaten fence. The light was still shining in the bank, 
and I knew that that redoubtable old rebel of a watch¬ 
man was peacefully sleeping with his gray guerilla of 
a marauding cat beside him. He could afford to sleep 
in peace. He had not failed in his trust, for the in¬ 
truders had no designs upon the bank's gold. Ques¬ 
tioned, he could stoutly swear that nobody had entered 
the building. In proof, were not all doors locked ? Who 
should break into a man’s office and rob his safe just to 
get a package of love-letters—if Inglesby made com¬ 
plaint ? 

I remember we stood leaning against the McCall fence 
for a few minutes, for my strength had of a sudden 
failed, my head spun like a top, and my legs wavered 
under me. 


374, 


SLIPPY McGEE 


4 ‘Buck up!” said Flint’s voice in my ear. “It’s all 
over, and the baby’s named for his Poppa! ’ ’ His arm 
went about me, an arm like a steel bar. Half led, half 
carried, I went staggering on beside him like a drunken 
man, clutching a rosary and a packet of love-letters. 

The streets were still dark and deserted, the whole 
town slept. But over in the east, when one glimpsed the 
skies above the trees, a nebulous gray was stealing upon 
the darkness; and the morning star blazed magnificently, 
in a space that seemed to have been cleared for it. 
Somewhere, far off, an ambitious rooster crowed to make 
the sun rise. 

It took us a long time to reach home. It was all of a 
quarter past four when we turned into the Parish House 
gate, cut across the garden, and reached Flint’s rooms. 
Faint, trembling in every limb, I fell into a chair, and 
through a mist saw him kneel and blow upon the coals 
of the expiring fire, upon which he dropped a lightwood 
knot. A ruddy glow went dancing up the chimney. 
Then he was beside mfc again. Very gently he removed 
hat and overcoat. And then I was sitting peacefully 
in the Morris chair, in my old cassock, and with my own 
old biretta on my head; and there was no longer that 
thin buzzing, shrill and torturing as a mosquito’s, sing¬ 
ing in my ears. At my knee stood Kerry, with his beau¬ 
tiful hazel eyes full of a grave concern; and beside him, 
calm and kind and matter-of-fact, the Butterfly Man 
himself stood watching me with an equal regard. I 
rubbed my forehead. The incredible had happened, and 
like all incredible things it had been almost ridiculously 
simple and easy of accomplishment. Here we were, we 
two, priest and naturalist, in our own workroom, with 


THE I O U OF SLIPPY McGEE 375 


an old dog wagging his tail beside us. Could anything 
be more commonplace? The last trace of nightmare 
vanished, as smoke dispelled by the wind. If Mary Vir¬ 
ginia’s letters had not been within reach of my hand I 
would have sworn I was just awake out of a dream of 
that past hour. 

“She has escaped from them, they cannot touch her, 
she is free!” I exulted. “John, John, you have saved 
our girl! No matter what they do to Eustis they can’t 
drag her into the quicksands now.” 

But he went walking up and down, shoulders squared, 
face uplifted. One might think that after such a night 
he would have been humanly tired, but he had clean for¬ 
gotten his body. His eyes shone as with a flame lit from 
inward, and I think there was on him what the Irish 
people call the Aisling, the waking vision. For pres¬ 
ently he began to speak, as to Somebody very near him. 

‘ ‘ Oh, Lord God! ’ ’ said the Butterfly Man, with a rev¬ 
erent and fierce joy, “she’s goii^ to have her happiness 
now, and it was n’t holy priest nor fine gentleman you 
picked out to help her toward it—it was me, Slippy 
McGee, born in the streets and bred in the gutter, with 
the devil knows who for his daddy and a name that’s 
none of his own! For that I’m Yours for keeps: 
You ’ve got me. 

“You’ve done all even God Almighty can do, given 
me more than I ever could have asked You for—and now 
it’s up to me to make good—and I ’ll do it! ” 

There came to listening me something of the emotion 
I experienced when I said my first Mass—as if I 
had been brought so close to our Father that I could 
have put out my hand and touched Him. Ah! I had 


376 


SLIPPY McGEE 


had a very small part to play in this man’s redemption. 
I knew it now, and felt humbled and abashed, and yet 
grateful that even so much had been allowed me. Not 
I, but Love, had transformed a sinner and an outlaw into 
a great scientist and a greater lover. And I remembered 
Mary Virginia’s childish hand putting into his the gray¬ 
winged Catocala, and how the little moth, raising the sad- 
colored wings worn to suit his surroundings, revealed 
beneath that disfiguring and disguising cloak the ex¬ 
quisite and flower-like loveliness of the underwings. 

He paused in his swinging stride, and looked down at 
me a bit shyly. 

“Parson—you see how it is with me!” 

4 ‘ I see. And I think she is the greater lady for it and 
you the finer gentleman,” said I stoutly. “It would 
honor her, if she were ten times what she is—and she is 
Mary Virginia.” 

“She is Mary Virginia,” said the Butterfly Man, “and 
I am—what I am. Yet somehow I feel sure I can care 
for her, that I can go right on caring for her to the end 
of time, without hurt to her or sorrow to me.” And 
after a pause, he added, deliberately: 

“I found something better than a package of letters 
to-night, parson. I found— Me.” 

For awhile neither of us spoke. Then he said, spec¬ 
ulatively : 

“Folks give all sorts of things to the church—dedi¬ 
cate them in gratitude for favors they fancy they’ve 
received, don’t they? Lamps, and models of ships, and 
glass eyes and wax toes and leather hands, and crutches 
and braces, and that sort of plunder? Well, I’m moved 
to make a free-will offering myself. I’m going to give 


THE I O U OF SLIPPY McGEE 377 

the church my kit, and you can take it from me the old 
Lady will never get her clamps on another set like that 
until Gabriel blows his trumpet in the morning. Parson, 
I want you to put those tools back where you had them, 
for I shall never touch them again. I couldn’t. They 
—well, they ’re sort of holy from now on. They ’re my 
I 0 U. Will you do it for me?” 

“Yes!” said I. 

“I might have known you would!” said he, smiling. 
“Just one more favor, parson—may I put her letters 
in her hands, myself?” 

“My son, my son, who but you should do that?” I 
pushed the package across the table. 

“Great Scott, parson, here it is striking five o’clock, 
and you’ve been up all night! ” he exclaimed, anxiously. 
“Here—no more gassing. You come lie down on my bed 
and snooze a bit. I ’ll call you in plenty of time for 
mass.” 

I was far too spent and tired to move across the garden 
to the Parish House. I suffered myself to be put to bed 
like a child, and had my reward by falling almost im¬ 
mediately into a dreamless sleep, nor did I stir until he 
called me, a couple of hours later. He himself had not 
slept, but had employed the time in going through the 
letters open on his table. He pointed to them now, with 
a grim smile. 

“Parson!” said he, and his eyes glittered. “Do you 
know what we’ve stumbled upon ? Dynamite! Man, 
anybody holding that bunch of mail could blow this state 
wide open! So much for a hunch, you see!” 

“You mean—” 

“I mean I’ve got the cream off Inglesby’s most pri- 


378 


SLIPPY McGEE 


vate deals, that’s what I mean! I mean I could send 
him and plenty of his pals to the pen. Everybody’s 
been saying for years that there hasn’t been a rotten 
deal pulled off that he did n’t boss and get away with it. 
But nobody could prove it. He’s had the men higher-up 
eating out of his hand—sort of you pat my head and I ’ll 
pat yours arrangement—and here’s the proof, in black 
and white. Don’t you understand? Here’s the proof: 
these get him with the goods! 

‘ ‘ These, ’ ’ he slapped a letter, ‘ ‘ would make any Grand 
Jury throw fits, make every newspaper in the state break 
out into headlines like a kid with measles, and blow the 
lid off things in general—if they got out. 

‘ ‘ Inglesby’s going to shove Eustis under, is he ? Not 
by a jugful!. He’s going to play he’s a patent life-pre¬ 
server. He’s going to be that good Samaritan he’s been 
shamming. Talk about poetic justice—this will be like 
wearing shoes three sizes too small for him, with a bunion 
on every toe!” And when I looked at him doubtfully, 
he laughed. 

“You can’t see how it’s going to be managed? 
Did n’t you ever hear of the grapevine telegraph? Well 
then, dear George receives a grapevine wireless bright 
and early to-morrow morning. A word to the wise is 
sufficient. ’ ’ 

“He will employ detectives,” said I, uneasily. 

The Butterfly Man looked at me quizzically. 

“With an eagle eye and a walrus mustache,” said he, 
grinning. “Sure. But if the plainclothes nose around, 
are they going to sherlock the parish priest and the town 
bughunter? We haven’t got any interest in Mr. 
Inglesby’s private correspondence, have we? Suppose 


THE I O U OF SLIPPY McGEE 


379 


Miss Eustis’s letters are returned to her, what does that 
prove ? Why, nothing at all,—except that it was n’t her 
correspondence the fellows that cracked that safe were 
after. We should worry! 

‘‘Say, though, don’t you wish you could see them when 
they stroll down to those beautiful offices and go for to 
open that nice burglar-proof safe with the little brass 
flower-pot on top of it? What a joke! Ploly whiskered 
black cats, what a joke!” 

“I ’in afraid Mr. Inglesby’s sense of humor isn’t his 
strong point,” said I. “Not that I have any sympathy 
for him. I think he is getting only what he deserves.” 

“Alexander the coppersmith wrought me much evil. 
May God requite him according to his works!’’ mur¬ 
mured the Butterfly Man, piously, and chuckled. 
“Don’t worry, parson—Alexander’s due to fall sick 
with the pip to-day or to-morrow. What do you bet he 
don’t get it so bad he ’ll have to pull up all his pretty 
plans by the roots, leave Mr. Hunter in charge, and go 
off somewhere to take mudbaths for his liver? Believe 
me, he ’ll need them! Why, the man won’t be able to 
breathe easy any more—he ’ll be expecting one in the 
solar plexus any minute, not knowing any more than 
Adam’s cat who’s to hand it to him. He can’t tell who 
to trust and who to suspect. If you want to know just 
how hard Alexander’s going to be requited according 
to his works, take a look at these.” He pointed to the 
letters. 

I did take a look, and I admit I was frightened. It 
seemed to me highly unsafe for plain folks like us to 
know such things about such people. I was amazed to 
the point of stupefaction at the corruption those com* 


380 


SLIPPY McGEE 


munications betrayed, the shameless and sordid disre¬ 
gard of law and decency, the brutal and cynical indiffer¬ 
ence to public welfare. At sight of some of the 
signatures my head swam—I felt saddened, disillusioned, 
almost in despair for humanity. I suppose Inglesby had 
thought it wiser to preserve these letters—possibly for 
his own safety; but no wonder he had locked them up! 
I looked at the Butterfly Man openmouthed. 

“You would n’t think folks wearing such names could 
be that rotten, would you? Some of them pillars of 
the church, too, and married to good women, and the 
fathers of nice kids! Why, I have known crooks that 
the police of a dozen states were after, that wouldn’t 
have been caught dead on jobs like some of these. 
Inglesby won’t know it, but he ought to thank his stars 
we’ve got his letters instead of the State Attorney, for 
1 shan’t use them unless I have to. . . . Parson, you re¬ 
member a blue jay breaking up a nest on me once, and 
what Laurence said when I wanted to wring the little 
crook’s neck? That the thing isn’t to reform the jay 
but to keep him from doing it again ? That’s the cue. ’ ’ 

He gathered up the scattered letters, made a neat 
package of them, and put it in a table drawer behind a 
stack of note-books. And then he reached over and 
touched the other package, the letters written in Mary 
Virginia’s girlish hand. 

“Here’s her happiness—long, long years of it ahead 
of her,” he said soberly. “As for you, you take back 
those tools, and go say mass. ’ ’ 

Outside it was broad bright day, a new beautiful day, 
and the breath of the morning blew sweetly over the 
world. The Church was full of a clear and early light, 


THE I O U OF SLIPPY McGEE 


381 


the young pale gold of the new Spring sun. None of the 
congregation had as yet arrived. Before I went into 
the sacristy to put on my vestments, I gave back into 
St. Stanislaus’ hands the I 0 U of Slippy McGee. 


CHAPTER XX 


BETWEEN A BUTTERFLY’S WINGS 

T HERE was a glamour upon it. One knew it was 
going to grow into one of those wonderful and 
shining days in whose enchanted hours any 
exquisite miracle might happen. I am perfectly sure that 
the Lord God walked in the garden in the cool of an 
April day, and that it was a morning in spring when 
the angels visited Abraham, sitting watchful in the door 
of his tent. 

There was in the air itself something long-missed and 
come back, a heady and heart-moving delight, a promise, 
a thrill, a whisper of “April! April!” that the Green 
Things and the hosts of the Little People had heard over¬ 
night. In the dark the sleeping souls of the golden 
butterflies had dreamed it, known it was a true Word, 
and now they were out, “Little flames of God” dancing 
in the Sunday sunlight. The Red Gulf Fritillary had 
heard it, and here she was, all in her fine fulvous frock 
besmocked with black velvet, and her farthingale 
spangled with silver. And the gallant Red Admiral, the 
brave beautiful Red Admiral that had dared unfriendlier 
gales, trimmed his painted sails to a wind that was the 
breath of spring. 

Over by the gate the spirea had ventured into show¬ 
ering sprays exhaling a shy and fugitive fragrance, and 
382 


BETWEEN A BUTTERFLY’S WINGS 383 


what had been a blur of gray cables strung upon the 
oaks had begun to bud with emerald and blossom with 
amethyst—the wistaria was a-borning. And one knew 
there was Cherokee rose to follow, that the dogwood was 
in white, and the year’s new mintage of gold dandelions 
was being coined in the fresh grass. 

There wasn’t a bird that wasn’t caroling April! at 
the top of his voice from the full of his heart; for was n’t 
the world alive again, wasn’t it love-time and nest-time, 
was n’t it Spring ? 

Even to the tired faces of my work-folks that shining 
morning lent a light that was hope. Without knowing 
it, they felt themselves a vital part of the reborn world, 
sharers in its joy because they were the children of the 
common lot, the common people for whom the world is, 
and without whom no world could be. Classes, creeds, 
nations, gods, all these pass and are gone; God, and the 
common people, and the spring remain. 

When I was young I liked as well as another to dwell 
overmuch upon the sinfulness of sin, the sorrow of sor¬ 
row, the despair of death. Now that these three terrible 
teachers have taught me a truer wisdom and a larger 
faith, I like better to turn to the glory of hope, the 
wisdom of love, and the simple truth that death is just a 
passing phase of life. So I sent my workers home that 
morning rejoicing with the truth, and was all the happier 
and hopefuller myself because of it. 

Afterwards, when Clelie was giving me my coffee and 
rolls, the Butterfly Man came in to breakfast with me, 
a huge roll of those New York newspapers which contain 
what are mistakenly known as Comic Supplements tucked 
under his arm. 


384 


SLIPPY McGEE 


He said he bought them because they “tasted like New 
York” which they do not. Just as Major Cartwright 
explains his purchase of them by the shameless assertion 
that it just tickles him to death “to see what Godforsaken 
id jits those Yankees can make of themselves when they 
half-way try. Why, suh, one glance at their Sunday 
newspapers ought to prove to any right tliinkin’ man 
that it’s safer an’ saner to die in South Carolina than 
to live in New York!” 

1 think the Butterfly Man and Major Cartwright buy 
those papers because they think they are funny! After 
they have read and sniggered, they donate them to Clelie 
and Daddy January. And presently Clelie distributes 
them to a waiting colored countryside, which wallpapers 
its houses with them. I have had to counsel the erring 
and bolster the faith of the backsliding under the goggle 
eyes of inhuman creations whose unholy capers have 
made futile many a prayer. And yet the Butterfly Man 
likes them! Is it not to wonder ? 

He laid them tenderly upon the table now, and smiled 
slyly to see me eye them askance. 

“Did you know,” said he, over his coffee, “that Lau¬ 
rence came in this morning on the six-o’clock? January 
had him out in the garden showing off the judge’s new 
patent hives, and I stopped on my way to church and 
shook hands over the fence. It was all I could do to 
keep from shouting that all’s right with the world, and 
all he had to do was to be glad. I didn’t know how 
much I cared for that boy until this morning. Parson, 
it’s a—a terrible thing to love people, when you come 
to think about it, is n’t it? I told him you were honing 
to see him: and that we’d be looking for him along about 


BETWEEN A BUTTERFLY’S WINGS 385 

eleven. And I intimated that if he did n’t show up then 
I’d go after him with a gun. He said he’d be here on 
the stroke.” After a moment, he added gently: “I 
figured they’d be here by then—Madame and Mary 
Virginia.” 

“What! You have induced Laurence to come while 
she is here—without giving him any intimation that he 
is likely to meet her?” I said, aghast. “You are a bold 
man, John Flint!” 

The study windows were open and the sweet wind and 
the warm sun poured in unchecked. The stir of bees, 
the scent of honey-locust just opening, drifted in, and 
the slow solemn clangor of church bells, and lilts and 
flutings and calls and whistlings from the tree-tops. We 
could see passing groups of our neighbors, fathers and 
mothers shepherding little flocks of children in their 
Sunday best, trotting along with demure Sabbath faces 
on their way to church. The Butterfly Man looked out, 
waved gaily to the passing children, who waved back a 
joyous response, nodded to their smiling parents, fol¬ 
lowed the flight of a tanager’s sober spouse, and sniffed 
the air luxuriously. 

“Oh, somebody’s got to stage-manage, parson,” he 
said at last, lightly enough, but with a hint of tiredness 
in his eyes. “And then vanish behind the scenes, leav¬ 
ing the hero and heroine in the middle of the spotlight, 
with the orchestra tuning up ‘The Voice that Breathed 
o’er Eden,’ ” he finished, without a trace of bitterness. 
“So I sent Madame a note by a little nigger newsie.” 
His eyes crinkled, and he quoted the favorite aphorism 
of the colored people, when they seem to exercise a me¬ 
ticulous care: “Brer Rabbit say, ‘I trus’ no mistake.’ ” 


386 


SLIPPY McGEE 


“You are a bold man,” said I again, with a respect 
that made him laugh. Then we went over to his rooms 
to wait, and while we waited I tried to read a chapter 
of a book I was anxious to finish, but couldn’t, my eyes 
being tempted by the greener and fresher page opening 
before them. Flint smoked a virulent pipe and read 
his papers. 

Presently he laid his finger upon a paragraph and 
handed me the paper. . . . And I read where one 
“Spike” Frazer had been shot to death in a hand-to- 
hand fight with the police who were raiding a dive sus¬ 
pected of being the rendezvous of drug-fiends. Long 
wanted and at last cornered, Frazer had fought tiger- 
ishly and died in his tracks, preferring death to capture. 
A sly and secretive creature, he had had a checkered 
career in the depths. It was his one boast that more than 
anybody else he had known and been a sort of protege 
of the once notorious Slippy McGee, that King of Crooks 
whose body had been found in the East River some years 
since, and whose daring and mysterious exploits were not 
yet altogether forgotten by the police or the underworld. 

“Sic transit gloria mundi!” said the Butterfly Man 
in his gentle voice, and looked out over the peaceful gar¬ 
den and the Sunday calm with inscrutable eyes. I re¬ 
turned the paper with a hand that shook. It seemed to 
me that a deep and solemn hush fell for a moment upon 
the glory of the day, while the specter of what might 
have been gibbered at us for the last time. 

Out of the heart of that hush walked two women—one 
little and rosy and white-haired, one tall and pale and 
beautiful with the beauty upon which sorrow has placed 
its haunting imprint. Her black hair framed her face as 


BETWEEN A BUTTERFLY’S WINGS 387 

in ebony, and her blue, blue eyes were shadowed. By an 
odd coincidence she was dressed this morning just as she 
had been when the Butterfly Man first saw her—in white, 
and over it a scarlet jacket. Kerry and little Pitache 
rose, met them at the gate, and escorted them with grave 
politeness. The Butterfly Man hastily emptied his pipe 
and laid aside his newspapers. 

“Your note said we were to come, that everything was 
all right, ’ ’ said my mother, looking up at him with bright 
and trustful eyes. “Such a relief! Because I know 
you never say anything you don’t mean, John.” 

He smiled, and with a wave of the hand beckoned us 
into the workroom. Madame followed him eagerly and 
expectantly—she knew her John Flint. Mary Virginia 
came listlessly, dragging her feet, her eyes somber in a 
smileless face. She could not so quickly make herself 
hope, she w T ho had journeyed so far into the arid country 
of despair. But he, with something tender and proud 
and joyful in his looks, took her unresisting hand and 
drew her forward. 

“Mary Virginia!” I had not known how rich and 
deep the Butterfly Man’s voice could be. “Mary Vir¬ 
ginia, we promised you last night that if you would 
trust us, the Padre and me, we’d find the right way out, 
didn’t we? Now this is what happened: the Padre 
took his troubles to the Lord, and the Lord presently sent 
him back to me —with the beginning of the answer in 
his hand! And here’s the whole answer, Mary Vir¬ 
ginia.” And he placed in her hand the package of 
letters that meant so much to her. 

My mother gave a little scream. “Armand!” she 
said, fearfully. “She has told me all. Mon Dieu, how 


388 


SLIPPY McGEE 


have you two managed this, between midnight and morn¬ 
ing ? My son, you are a De Ranee: look me in the eyes 
and tell me there is nothing wrong, that there will be no 
ill consequences—” 

“There won’t be any comebacks,” said John Flint, 
with engaging confidence. “As for you, Mary Virginia, 
you don’t have to worry for one minute about what those 
fellows can do—because they can’t do anything. 
They ’re double-crossed. Now listen: when you see 
Hunter, you are to say to him, ‘ Thank you for returning 
my letters.’ Just that and no more. If there’s any 
questioning, stare. Stare hard. If there’s any threat¬ 
ening about your father, smile. You can afford to smile. 
They can’t touch him. But how those letters came into 
your hands you are never to tell, you understand ? They 
did come and that’s all that interests you.” He began 
to laugh, softly. ‘ ‘ All Hunter will want to know is that 
you’ve received them. He’s too game not to lose with¬ 
out noise, and he ’ll make Inglesby swallow his dose with¬ 
out squealing, too. So—you ’re finished and done with 
Mr. Hunter and Mr. Inglesby!” His voice deepened 
again, as he added gently: “It was just a bad dream, 
dear girl. It’s gone with the night. Now it’s morn¬ 
ing, and you ’re awake.” 

But Mary Virginia, white as wax, stared at the letters 
in her hand, and then at me, and trembled. 

“Trust us, my child,” said I, somewhat troubled. 
“And obey John Flint implicitly. Do just what he tells 
you to do, say just what he tells you to say.” 

Mary Virginia looked from one to the other, thrust 
the package upon me, walked swiftly up to him, and, lay¬ 
ing her hands upon his arms stared with passionate ear- 


BETWEEN A BUTTERFLY’S WINGS 389 

nestness into his face: the kind, wise, lovable face that 
every child in Appleboro County adores, every woman 
trusts, every man respects. Her eyes clung to his, and 
he met that searching gaze without faltering, though it 
seemed to probe for the root of his soul. It was well for 
Mary Virginia that those brave eyes had caught some¬ 
thing from the great faces that hung upon his walls 
and kept company and counsel with him day and night, 
they that conquered life and death and turned defeat 
into victory because they had first conquered themselves! 

“Yes!” said she, with a deep sigh of relief. “I trust 
you! Thank God for just how much I can believe and 
trust you! ’ ’ 

I think that meeting face to face that luminous and 
unfaltering regard, Mary Virginia must have divined 
that which had heretofore been hidden from her by the 
man’s invincible modesty and reserve; and being most 
generous and of a large and loving soul herself, I think 
she realized to the uttermost the magnitude of his gift. 
Her name, her secure position, her happiness, the hopes 
that the coming years were to transform into realities 
—oh, I like to think that Mary Virginia saw all this, 
in one of those lightning-flashes of spiritual insight that 
reveal more than all one’s slower years; I like to think 
she saw it given her freely, nobly, with joy, a glorious 
love-gift from the limping man into whose empty hand 
she had one day put a little gray underwing! 

I glanced at my mother, and saw by her most ex¬ 
pressive face that she knew and understood. She had 
known and understood, long before any of us. 

“If I might offer a suggestion,” I said in as mat¬ 
ter-of-fact a voice as I could command, “it would be, 


390 


SLIPPY McGEE 


that the sooner those letters are destroyed, the better.” 

Mary Virginia took them from me and dropped them 
on the coals remaining from last night's fire—the last 
fire of the season. They did not ignite quickly, though 
they began to turn brown, and thin spirals of smoke arose 
from them. The Butterfly Man knelt, thrust a handful 
of lightwood splinters under the pile, and touched a 
match here and there. When the resinous wood flared 
up, the letters blazed with it. They blazed and then 
they crumbled; they disappeared in bits of charred and 
black paper that vanished at a touch; they were gone 
while we watched, the girl kneeling upon the hearthrug 
with her hand on Flint’s arm, and I with my old heart 
singing like a skylark in my breast, and my mother’s 
mild eyes upon us all. 

Life and color and beauty flowed back into Mary Vir¬ 
ginia’s face and music’s self sang again in her voice. 
She was like the day itself, reborn out of a dark last 
night. When the last bit of blackened paper went swirl¬ 
ing up the chimney, and the two of them had risen, the 
most beautiful and expressive eyes under heaven looked 
up like blue and dewy flowers into the Butterfly Man’s 
face. She was too wise and too tender to try to thank 
him in words, and never while they two lived would this 
be again referred to so much as once by either; but 
she took his hand, palm upward, gave him one deep 
long upward glance, and then bent her beautiful head 
and dropped into the center of his palm a kiss, and closed 
the fingers gently over it for everlasting keeping and 
remembrance. The eyes brimmed over then, and two 
large tears fell upon his hand and washed her kiss in, 
indelibly. 


BETWEEN A BUTTERFLY’S WINGS 391 


None of us four had the power of speech left us. 
Heaven knows what we should have done, if Laurence 
hadn’t opened the door at that moment and walked in 
upon us. I don’t think he altogether sensed the tense¬ 
ness of the situation which his coming relieved, but he 
went pale at sight of Mary Virginia, and he would have 
left incontinently if my mother, with a joyous shriek, 
had n’t pounced upon him. 

“Laurence! Why, Laurence! But we didn’t expect 
you home until to-morrow night!” said she, kissing him 
motherly. “My dear, dear boy, how glad I am to see 
you! What happy wind blew you home to-day, Lau¬ 
rence ? ’ ’ 

“Oh, I finished my work ahead of schedule and got 
away just as soon as I could,” Laurence briefly and 
modestly explained thus that he had won his case. He 
edged toward the door, avoiding Mary Virginia’s eyes. 
He had bowed to her with formal politeness. He won¬ 
dered at the usually tactful Madame’s open effort to 
detain him. It was a little too much to expect of him! 

“I just ran in to see how you all were,” he tried to 
be very casual. “See you later, Padre. ’By, p’tite 
Madame. ’By, Flint.” He bowed again to Mary Vir¬ 
ginia, whose color had altogether left her, and who stood 
there most palpably nervous and distressed. 

“Laurence!” The Butterfly Man spoke abruptly. 
“Laurence, if a chap was dying of thirst and the water 
of life was offered him, he’d be considerable of a fool 
to turn his head aside and refuse to see it, wouldn’t 
he?” 

Laurence paused. Something in the Butterfly Man’s 
face, something in mine and Madame’s, but, above all, 


392 


SLIPPY McGEE 


something in Mary Virginia’s, arrested him. He stood 
wavering, and my mother released his arm. 

“I take it,” said John Flint, boldly plunging to the 
very heart of the matter, ‘ ‘ I take it, Laurence, that you 
still care a very great deal for this dear girl of ours?” 
And now he had taken her hand in his and held it com¬ 
fortingly. “More, say, than you could ever care for 
anybody else, if you lived to rival Methusaleh? So 
much, Laurence, that not to be able to believe she cares 
the same way for you takes the core out of life?” His 
manner was simple and direct, and so kind that one could 
only answer him in a like spirit. Besides, Laurence 
loved the Butterfly Man even as Jonathan loved David. 

“Yes,” said the boy honestly, “I still care for her— 
like that. I always did. I always will. She knows.” 
But his voice was toneless. 

“Of course you do, kid brother,” said Flint affec¬ 
tionately. “Don’t you suppose I know? But it’s just 
as well for you to say it out loud every now and then. 
Fresh air is good for everything, particularly feelings. 
Keeps ’em fresh and healthy. Now, Mary Virginia, you 
feel just the same way about Laurence, don’t you?” 
And he added: “Don’t be ashamed to tell the most 
beautiful truth in the world, my dear. Well?” 

She went red and white. She looked entreatingly into 
the Butterfly Man’s face. She didn’t exactly see why 
he should drive her thus, but she caught courage from 
his. One saw how wise Flint had been to have snared 
Laurence here just now. One moment she hesitated. 
Then: 

“Yes!” said she, and her head went up proudly. 
“Yes, oh, yes, I care—like that. Only much, much more! 


BETWEEN A BUTTERFLY’S WINGS 393 

I shall always care like that, although he probably won’t 
believe me now when I say so. And I can’t blame him 
for doubting me.” 

“But it just happens that I have never been able to 
make myself doubt you, ’ ’ said Laurence gravely. 
“Why, Mary Virginia, you are you.” 

“Then, Laurence,” said the Butterfly Man, quickly, 
“will you take your old friends’ word for it—mine, Ma¬ 
dame’s, the Padre’s—that you were most divinely right 
to go on believing in her and loving her, because she 
never for one moment ceased to be worthy of faith and 
affection ? No, not for one moment! She could n’t, you 
know. She’s Mary Virginia! And will you promise 
to listen with all your patience to what she may think 
best to tell you presently—and then forget it? You ’re 
big enough to do that! She’s been in sore straits, and 
she needs all the love you have, to help make up to her. 
Can she be sure of it, Laurence?” 

Lauronce flushed. He looked at his old friend with 
reproach in his fine brown eyes. “You have known me 
all my life, all of you,” said he, stiffly. “Have I ever 
given any of you any reason to doubt me?” 

“No, and we don’t. Not one of us. But it’s good 
for your soul to say things out loud,” said Flint com¬ 
fortably. “And now you’ve said it, don’t you think 
you two had better go on over to the Parish House par¬ 
lor, which is a nice quiet place, and talk this whole busi¬ 
ness over and out—together ? ’ ’ 

Laurence looked at Mary Virginia and what he saw 
electrified him. Boyishness flooded him, youth danced 
in his eyes, beauty was upon him, like sunlight. 

“Mary Virginia!” said the boy lover to the girl sweet- 


394 


SLIPPY McGEE 


heart, “is it really so? I was really right to believe all 
along that you—care ? ’ ’ 

“Laurence, Laurence!” she was half-crying. “Oh, 
Laurence, are you sure you care—yet? You are sure, 
Laurence? You are sure? Because—I—I don’t think 
I could stand things now if—if I were mistaken—” 

I don’t know whether the boy ran to the girl at that, 
or the girl to the boy. I rather think they ran to each 
other because, in another moment, perfectly regardless 
of us, they were clinging to each other, and my mother 
was walking around them and crying heartily and shame¬ 
lessly, and enjoying herself immensely. Mary Virginia 
began to stammer: 

‘ 1 Laurence, if you only knew—Laurence, if it was n’t 
for John Flint—and the Padre—” The two of them had 
the two of us, each by an arm; and the Butterfly Man 
was brick-red and furiously embarrassed, he having a 
holy horror of being held up and thanked. 

“Why, I did what I did,” said he, uncomfortably. 
“But,”—he brightened visibly—“if you will have the 
truth, have it. If it wasn’t for this blessed brick of a 
parson I’d never have been in a position to do anything 
for anybody. Don’t you forget that!” 

“What ridiculous nonsense the man talks!” said I, 
exasperated by this shameless casuistry. “John Flint 
raves. As for me—” 

“As for you,” said he with deep reproach, “you ought 
to know better than to tell such a thumping lie at this 
time of your life. I’m ashamed of you, parson! Why, 
you know good and well—” 

“Why, John Flint, you—” I began, aghast. 

My mother began to laugh. “For heaven’s sake, 


BETWEEN A BUTTERFLY’S WINGS 395 

thank them both and have done with it!” said she, a bit 
hysterically. 11 God alone knows how they managed, but 
this thing lies between them, the two great geese. Did 
one ever hear the like?” 

“Madame is right, as always,” said Laurence gravely. 
“Remember, I don’t know anything yet, except that 
somehow you’ve brought Mary Virginia and me back to 
each other. That’s enough for me. I haven’t got any 
questions to ask.” His voice faltered, and he gripped 
us by the hand in turn, with a force that made me, for 
one, wince and cringe. “And Padre—Bughunter, you 
both know that I—” he couldn’t finish. 

“That we—” choked Mary Virginia. 

“Sure we know,” said the Butterfly Man hastily. 
“Don’t you know you ’re our kids and we’ve got to 
know?” He began to edge them towards the door. I 
think his courage was getting a little raw about the 
corners. “Yes, you two go on over to the Parish House 
parlor, w r here you ’ll have a chance to talk without being 
interrupted—Madame will see to that—and don’t you 
show your noses outside of that room until everything’s 
settled the one and only way everything ought to be 
settled.” His eyes twinkled as he. maneuvered them 
outside, and then stood in the doorway to watch them 
walk away—beautiful, youthful, radiantly happy, and 
very close together, the girl’s head just on the level of 
the boy’s shoulder. He was still faintly smiling when 
he came back to us; if there was pain behind that smile, 
he concealed it. My mother ran to him, impulsively. 

“John Flint!” said she, profoundly moved and 
earnest. “John Flint, the good God never gave me but 
one child, though I prayed for more. Often and often. 


396 


SLIPPY McGEE 


have I envied her silly mother Mary Virginia. But now. 
John, I know that if I could have had another child 
that, after Armand, I’d love best and respect most and 
be proudest of in this world, it would be you. Yes, you. 
John Flint, you are the best man, and the bravest and 
truest and most unselfish, and the finest gentleman, out¬ 
side of my husband and my son, that I have ever known. 
What makes it all the more wonderful is that you 're 
a genius along with it. I am proud of you, and glad of 
you, and I admire and love you with all my heart. And 
I really wish you’d call me mother. You should have 
been born a De Ranee!” 

This, from my mother! I was amazed. W T hv, she 
would think she was flattering one of the seraphim if 
she had said to him, “You might have been a De Ranee!” 

“Madame!” stammered Flint, “why, Madame!” 

“Oh, well, never mind, then. Let it go at Madame, 
since it would embarrass you to change. But I look upon 
you as my son, none the less. I claim you from this 
hour,” said she firmly, as one not to be gainsaid. 

“I’m beginning to believe in fairy-stories,” said 
Flint. ‘ ‘ The beggar comes home—and he is n T a beg¬ 
gar at all, he ’s a Prince. Because the Queen is his 
mother.” 

My mother looked at him approvingly. The grace of 
his manner, and the unaffected feeling of his words, 
pleased her. But she said no more of what was in her 
heart for him. She fell back, as women do, upon the 
safe subject of housekeeping matters. 

“I suppose,” she mused, “that those children will 
remain with us to-day? Yes, of course. Armand, we 
shall have the last of your great-grandfather's wine. 


BETWEEN A BUTTERFLY’S WINGS 397 

And I am going to send over for the judge. Let me see: 
shall I have time for a cake with frosting? H’m! Yes, 
I think so. Or would you prefer wine jelly with 
whipped cream, John?” 

He considered gravely, one hand on his hip, the other 
stroking his beard. 

“Couldn’t we have both?” he wondered hopefully. 
“Please! Just for this once?” 

“We could! We shall!” said my mother, grandly, 
recklessly, extravagantly. “Adieu, then, children of my 
heart! I go to confer with Clelie.” She waved her 
hand and was gone. 

The place shimmered with sun. Old Kerry lay with 
his head between his paws and dozed and dreamed in it, 
every now and then opening his hazel eyes to make sure 
that all was w T ell with his man. All outdoors was one 
glory of renewing life, of stir and growth, of loving and 
singing and nest-building, and the budding of new green 
leaves and the blossoming of April boughs. Just such 
April hopes were theirs who had found each other again 
this morning. All of life at its best and fairest stretched 
sunnily before those two, the fairer for the cloud that 
had for a time darkened it, the dearer and diviner for 
the loss that had been so imminent. 

. . . That was a redbird again. And now a vireo. 
And this the mockingbird, love-drunk, emptying his 
heart of a troubadour in a song oLfire and dew. And 
on a vagrant air, a gipsy air, the scent of the honey- 
locust. The spring for all the world else. But for him 
I loved,—what? 

I suppose my wistful eyes betrayed me, for used to 
the changing expressions of my thin visage, be smiled; 


398 


SLIPPY McGEE 


and stood up, stretching his arms above his head. He 
drew in great mouthfuls of the sweet air, and expanded 
his broad chest. 

“I feel full to the brim!” said he gloriously. 4 ‘I ’ve 
got almost too much to hold with both hands! Parson, 
parson, it isn’t possible you’re fretting over mef 
Sorry for me ? Why, man, consider! ’ ’ 

Ah, but had I not considered? I knew, I thought, 
what he had to hold fast to. Honor, yes. And the 
friendship of some and the admiration of many and the 
true love of the few, which is all any man may hope for 
and more than most attain. Outside of that, a gray 
moth, and a butterfly’s wing, and a. torn nest, and a 
child’s curl, and a ragdoll in her grave; and now a girl’s 
kiss on the palm and a tear to hallow it. But I who had 
greatly loved and even more greatly lost and suffered, 
was it not for me of all men to know and to understand ? 

“But I have got the thing itself,” said the Butterfly 
Man, “that makes everything else worth while. Why, 
I have been taught how to love! My work is big—but 
by itself it wasn’t enough for me. I needed something 
more. So I was swept and empty and ready and wait¬ 
ing—when she came. Now had n’t there got to be some¬ 
thing fine and decent in me, when it was she alone out 
of all the world I was waiting for and could love?” 
“Yes, yes. But oh, my son, my son! ’ 9 
44 Oh, it was bad and bitter enough at first, parson. 
Because I wanted her so much! Great God, I was like 
a soul in hell! After awhile I crawled out of hell— 
on my hands and knees. But I’d begun to understand 
things. I’d been taught. It’d been burnt into me 


BETWEEN A BUTTERFLY’S WINGS 399 


past forgetting. Maybe that’s wliat hell is for, if folks 
only knew it. Could anything ever happen to anybody 
any more that I couldn’t understand and be sorry for, 
I wonder? 

“No, don’t you worry any about me. I wouldn’t 
change places with anybody alive, I ’in too glad for ev¬ 
erything that’s ever happened to me, good and bad. 
I’m not ashamed of the beginning, no, nor I’m not 
afraid of the end. 

“Will you believe me, though, when I tell you what 
worried me like the mischief for awhile? Family, par¬ 
son! You can’t live in South Carolina without having 
the seven-years’ Family-itch wished on you, you know. 
I felt like a mushroom standing up on my one leg all 
by myself among a lot of proper garden plants—until 
I got fed up on the professional Descendant banking on 
his boneyard full of dead ones; then I quit worrying. 
I’m Me and alive—and I should worry about ancestors! 
Come to think about it, everybody’s an ancestor while 
you wait. I made up my mind I’d be my own ancestor 
and my own descendant—and make a good job of both 
while I was at it.” 

But I was too sad to smile. And after awhile he 
asked gently: 

“Are you grieving because you think I’ve lost love? 
Parson, did you ever know something you did n’t know 
how you knew, but you know you know it because it’s 
true? Well then—I know that girl’s mine and I came 
here to find her, though on the face of it you’d think 
I’d lost her, wouldn’t you? Somewhere and sometime 
I ’ll come again—and when I do, she ’ll know me.” 


400 


SLIPPY McGEE 


And to save my life I couldn’t tell him I didn’t be¬ 
lieve it! His manner even more than his words im¬ 
pressed me. He didn’t look improbable. 

“One little life and one little death,” said the Butter¬ 
fly Man, “couldn’t possibly be big enough for some¬ 
thing like this to get away from a man forever. I have 
got the thing too big for a dozen lives to hold. Isn’t 
that a great deal for a man to have, parson ? ’ ’ 

“Yes.” said I. “It is a great deal for a man to 
have.” But I foresaw the empty, empty places, in the 
long, long years ahead. I added faintly: 4 4 Having that 

much, you have more than most.” 

44 You only have what you are big enough not to take,” 
said he. 44 And I’m not fooling myself I shan’t be lone¬ 
some and come some rough tumbles at times. The differ¬ 
ence is, that if I go down now I won’t stay down. If 
there was one thing I could grieve over, too, it would be 
—kids. I’d like kids. My own kids. And I shall never 
have any. It—well, it just would n’t be fair to the kids. 
Louisa ’ll come nearest to being mine by bornation— 
though I’m thinking she’s managed to wish me every¬ 
body else’s, on her curl.” 

“So! You are your own ancestor and your own 
descendant, and everybody’s kids are yours! You are 
modest, hem? And what else have you got?” 

His eyes suddenly danced. 4 4 Nothing but the rest of 
the United States,” said the Butterfly Man, mag¬ 
nificently. And when I stared, he laughed at me. 

4 4 It’s quite true, parson: I have got the whole United 
States to work for. Uncle Sam. U. S. Us! I’ve been 
drafted into the Brigade that hasn’t any commander, 


BETWEEN A BUTTERFLY’S WINGS 401 

nor any colors, nor honors, nor even a name; but that’s 
never going to be mustered out of service, because we 
that enlist and belong can’t and won’t quit. 

“ Parson, think of me representing the Brigade down 
here on the Carolina coast, keeping up the work, fighting 
things that hurt and finding out things that helpi 
Lord, what a chance! A hundred millions to work for, 
a hundred millions of one’s own people—and a trail to 
blaze for the unborn millions to come!” His glance 
kindled, his face was like a lighted lamp. The vision 
was upon him, standing there in the April sunlight, 
staring widened into the future. 

Its reflected light illumined me, too—a little. And 
saw that in a very large and splendid sense, this was 
the true American. He stood almost symbolically for 
that for which America stands—the fighting chance to 
overcome and to grow, the square deal, the spirit that 
looks eagle-eyed and unafraid into the sunrise. And 
above all for unselfish service and unshakable faith, and 
a love larger than personal love, prouder than personal 
pride, higher than personal ambition. They do not know 
America who do not know and will not see this spirit in 
her, going its noble and noiseless way apart. 

“The whole world to work for, and a whole lifetime 
to do it in! ” said the voice of America, exultant. “Lord 
God, that’s a man-sized job, but You just give me hands 
and eyes and time, and I ’ll do the best I can. You’ve 
done Your part by me—stand by, and I ’ll do mine by 
You!” 

Are those curious coincidences, those circumstances 
which occur at such opportune moments that they leave 


402 


SLIPPY McGEE 


one with a sense of a guiding finger behind the affairs of 
men—are they, after all, only fortuitous accidents, or 
have they a deeper and a diviner significance ? 

There stood the long worktable, with orderly piles of 
work on it; the microscope in its place; the books he had 
opened and pushed aside last night; and some half-dozen 
small card-board boxes in a row, containing the chrys¬ 
alids he had been experimenting with, trying the effect 
of cold upon color. The cover of one box had been 
partially pushed off, possibly when he had moved the 
books. And while we had been paying attention to other 
things, one of these chrysalids had been paying strict 
attention to its own business, the beautiful and importan 
business of becoming a butterfly. Flint discovered it 
first, and gave a pleased exclamation. 

“Look! Look! A Turnus, father! The first Tur- 
nus of the year! ’ ’ 

The insect had been out for an hour or two, but was 
not yet quite ready to fly. It had crawled out of the 
half-opened box, dragged its wormy length across the 
table, over intervening obstacles, seeking some place to 
climb up and cling to. 

Now the Butterfly Man had left the Bible open, merely 
shoving it aside without shutting it, when he had found 
no comfort for himself last night in what John had to 
say. Protected by piled-up books and propped almost 
upright by the large inkstand, it gave the holding-place 
the insect desired. The butterfly had walked up the 
page and now clung to the top. 

There she rested, her black-and-yellow body quivering 
like a tiny live dynamo from the strong force of circula¬ 
tion, that was sending vital fluids upward into the wings 


BETWEEN A BUTTERFLY’S WINGS 403 


to give them power and expansion. We had seen the 
same thing a thousand and one times before, we should 
see it a thousand and one times again. But I do not 
think either of us could ever forego the delight of watch¬ 
ing a butterfly’s wings shaping themselves for flight, and 
growing into something of beauty and of wonder. The 
lovely miracle is ever new to us. 

She was a big butterfly, big even for the greatest of 
Carolina swallow-tails; not the dark dimorphic form, but 
the true Tiger Turnus itself, her barred yellow upper 
wings edged with black enamel indented with red gold, 
her tailed lower wings bordered with a wider band of 
black, and this not only set with lunettes of gold but with 
purple amethysts, and a ruby on the upper and lower 
edges. Her wings moved rhythmically; a constant quiv¬ 
ering agitated her, and her antennae with their flattened 
clubs seemed to be sending and receiving wireless mes¬ 
sages from the shining world outside. 

And as the wings had dried and grown firmer in the 
mild warm current of air and the bright sunlight, she 
moved them with a wider and bolder sweep. The heavy, 
unwieldy body, thinned by the expulsion of those cur¬ 
rents driven upward to give flying-power to the wings, 
had taken on a slim and tapering grace. She had 
reached her fairy perfection. She was ready now for 
flight and light and love and freedom and the uncharted 
pathways of the air, ready to carry out the design of 
the Creator who had fashioned her so wondrously and so 
beautiful, and had sent ahead of her the flowers for that 
marvelous tongue of hers to sip. 

Waiting still, opening and closing her exquisite wings, 
trying them, spreading them flat, the splendid swallow- 


404 


SLIPPY McGEE 


tail clung to the page of the book open at the Gospel of 
John. And I, idly enough, leaned forward, and saw be¬ 
tween the opening and the closing wings, words. The 
which John Flint, bending forward beside me, likewise 
saw. “Work,” flashed out. And on a lower line, 
“while it is day.” 

I grasped the edge of the table; his knuckles showed 
white beside mine. 

“7 must work the works of him 
that sent me, while it is day .” 

His eyes grew larger and deeper. A sort of inward 
light, a serene and joyous acceptance and assurance, 
flowed into them. I that had dared to be despondent 
felt a sense of awe. The Voice that had once spoken 
above the Mercy Seat and between the wings of the 
cherubim was speaking now in immortal words between 
the wings of a butterfly. 

She was poising herself for her first flight, the bright 
and lovely Lady of the Sky. Now she spread her wings 
flat, as a fan is unfurled. And now she had lifted them 
clear and uncovered her message. The Butterfly Man 
watched her, hanging absorbed upon her every movement. 
And he read, softly: 

“7 must work 
. . . while it is day” 

Lightly as a flower, a living and glorious flower, she 
lifted and launched herself into the air, flew straight and 
sure for the outside light, hung poised one gracious mo¬ 
ment, and was gone. 

He turned to me the sweetest, clearest eyes I have ever 


BETWEEN A BUTTERFLY’S WINGS 405 


seen in a mortal countenance, the eyes of a little child. 
His face had caught a sort of secret beauty, that was 
never to leave it any more. 

‘ 1 Parson! ’ ’ said the Butterfly Man, in a whisper that 
shook with the beating of his heart behind it: “Parson! 
Don't it beat hell?” 

I rocked on my toes. Then I flung my arms around 
him, with a jubilant shout: 

“It does! It does! Oh, Butterfly Man, by the grace 
and the glory and the wonder of God, it beats hell!” 


THE END 











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